Re: *** empty log message *** is a no-no

[Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch>]

Denys Duchier <Denys.Duchier@ps.uni-sb.de> writes:

> > No they are very useful for concurrent development.
> 
> useful, but not appropriate.  what ultimately matters is the record of
> committed changes.

I don't quite understand what you mean here. If you commit the new
ChangeLog entries with the changes they refer to the ChangeLogs also
only record commited changes?

> written, tools to be maintained, databases to be updated, etc...  I
> don't know if my case is atypical; maybe you're right.

I think it is more the other way around. It is Gnus (or in my case
XEmacs) that are atypical. 

> well, not in my experience, but I guess your mileage may vary.  My
> main beef with this is that empty log messages just don't help me any.
> And saying "see ChangeLog file" also does not help (see what?).  I
> want `C-x v l' to give me an informative log history of the file.

Indeed. I was never arguing for that. In fact I think making sure the
log messages get populated from ChangeLogs is a very good idea.
XEmacs currently has CVS logs of the style "Martin's patch" or "Some
patches for 21.1.19" which is highly annoying.

I am just arguing that currently  CVS logs cannot ChangeLogs replace
ChangeLogs, because the

1. The ChangeLogs have a logical grouping and this is more or less
   enforced. The changes explicitly name the functional unit involved.
2. ChangeLogs can be distributed easily with the tarballs.

What I would really want is a better VC system than CVS.

> However, not being a gnus developer myself, my opinion is hardly the
> one that really matters here.

I think input about issues, coming from experience, is just good a
contribution as coding.

Jan