kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/3/2017 8:54 AM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> On 11/03/2017 11:30 AM, Kristoffer Ödmark wrote:
>> I think starting small would be best in this case. The least needed
>> would be a "News" File, that is always refering to kicad stable.
>>
>> I propose the same way that patches with policy errors are rejected,
>> patches that introduces new functionality or change of existing
>> functionality are required to add to the News file, max one line. Just
>> something like this, I would like markdown formatting.
>>
>>
>> Changes from Kicad 4
>> =
>>
>> NEW: Pcbnew now supports clipboard copy/paste
>> CHANGE: Delete button now removes entire trace, not just a segment
>> CHANGE: Icons in toolbar are improved
>> REMOVED: Autorouter no longer exists
>>
>>
>> This style could also be applied in the git commit message, making it
>> easy to compile by something such as 'git log | grep "NEW:"'
>>
>> But since that is lacking, I think starting a new file is best.
> 
> I vote for git commit messages following a specific format (could be
> NEW:/CHANGE:/REMOVE: lines) to easily create change logs. It is much
> easier to see with git what has changed in a specific period of time.
> With NEWS file you would need at least put dates there to be able to do
> that (or see with git when a specific line has been added).
> 
> I know that ideally the user documentation should be updated together
> with the code, but on the other KiCad changes so fast, so there might be
> a lot of wasted time spent on changing the documentation and updating
> screens that might be invalid in a week or two. For sure the
> documentation should be refreshed for a stable release.
> 
> Regards,
> Orson
> 

I'm not opposed to this idea but it should be used sensibly.  Not all
new, changed, or removed code will require documentation changes.  I
would also prefer it not be in the first line of the commit message
unless the commit message is only one line.  It's already difficult to
fit a descriptive commit title with only 72 characters.

Cheers,

Wayne