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• Some comments ... (Score:2)

  by drhyde (1683) on 2007.11.13 10:01 (#59009) Homepage Journal

  I prefer single characters instead of words; + and - for additions and removals (like diff); removal and other changes should be distinct because removal does *not* imply incompatible (see the example below).

  Any thoughts on how to deal with long text for any entry? I suggest that if a line starts with whitespace, it is assumed to be a continuation of the previous line:

  -: removed the dependency on Foo::Bar, which fails its tests on some platforms.
   It is now optional, and without it frobnitz() won't work.
   (see RT ticket 12345).

  I suppose some way of linking each change to a ticket (and of course specifying where the ticket is - rt.cpan? code.google?) and a CVS commit would be nice too, although it should be optional as most people aren't that anal.

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:1)

    by hex (3272)

    > I suggest that if a line starts with whitespace, it is assumed to be a continuation of the previous line

    That'd be the part of the spec that says "A line beginning with \s+ is interpreted as the continuation of the preceding line" :-)

    Re your other points, I liked the single letters more too but people were keen on the whole word versions. I'll let them respond...

    I thought of maybe inventing a format for specifying bugtracker URLs but then it was getting a bit too complicated to merit the "simpli
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drhyde (1683)

      Furrfu! You don't expect programmers to read the documentation do you? :-)
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by Juerd (1796)

    That kind of removed is not the kind of removed I was thinking of. Such confusion is another reason to remove "removed" from the list.
    
    However, it does uncover a missing part of the changelog spec: a keyword for changes that are neither bugfixes nor incompatible, like backend changes (removed dependencies) and performance optimizations. I suggest "change" because it is nicely neutral. (I was thinking of "improvement" first, but it is too long and internals changes can be done for other reasons too.)
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hex (3272)

      Actually, the first draft spec had "c" for "change" in it, and I think I dropped it by mistake when drawing up this new one. I agree that it should go back in.