[webkit-dev] I *HATE* CHANGELOGS!!!

[Chris Marrin]

On Aug 26, 2009, at 3:26 PM, David Hyatt wrote:

> I am so sick of Changelogs.  Every time I get a patch ready to land,  
> I end up being blocked on commit because of conflicts in the stupid  
> ChangeLog files.  Often even after I resolve conflicts, someone  
> checks in again, and then I get conflicts all over again.
>
> If I have to make a minor change because of a code review, I often  
> don't feel like I can even re-run layout tests, because waiting even  
> 5 minutes just means I'm going to have conflicts again!
>
> Having everyone in the project hitting the same file when all of  
> this information could be specified as part of checkin messages is  
> just crazy.  How much productivity has been lost from everyone  
> having to fix that stupid file... we've even written whole scripts  
> just to deal with merge headaches from this file.
>
> What purpose do these stupid files even serve at this point?
>
> They need to die.


It's great to hear you say this. I agree and hit this issue all the  
time as well. Like you say, the SVN log has the same information as  
the Changelog. Maybe prepareChangelog should become  
prepareCommitMessage which can generate a message template with slots  
for the reviewer and list the files changed so you can still add  
details about the changes. It would make life easier, I think...

-----
~Chris
cmarrin at apple.com