kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

I like this idea as well.  It's simple and easy to remember.  If there
are no objections, I will updated the commit message policy to add NEW,
CHANGED, and REMOVED tags and a brief explanation of when each tag
should be used.  Is there any special formatting that we want to use
with these tags to make life easier for folks trying to extract
information using scripts?  Rather than adding the tag to the end which
may be a bit limiting, I was thinking it may make more sense to add the
tag to the beginning of the description of the change separated by empty
lines.  It could look something like this.

Major rewrite of some existing feature.

NEW: The feature adds support for X, Y, and Z operations.

REMOVED: The feature no longer supports the foo operation.

CHANGED: The feature operations bar and baz now require manual frobnication.

If anyone has any better ideas, now is the time.

Cheers,

Wayne

On 11/9/2017 11:06 AM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> I am in favor of including the information in commit messages. In the
> simplest version, one can simple append "CHANGE" at the end of a commit
> message. If we follow this scheme, then to get a changelog it is enough
> to execute "git log --grep=CHANGE". One can also modify the query to get
> changelog for different periods.
> 
> It is a tiny effort on the developers side which significantly helps
> people willing to work on the documentation, therefore I think it is
> worth pursuing. The only possible problem I see here is to get into the
> habit, but we did well with "Fixes".
> 
> Regards,
> Orson
> 
> On 11/09/2017 01:40 PM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
>> I didn't mean to indicate that one shall not write useful commit messages
>> in the kicad source repo. The start of this topic was how to make sure to
>> keep the doc up to date. This is what I was trying to comment on. Here it
>> is better to track the work where it is to be done, in the kicad-doc repo.
>> That does not hinder anyone from grepping the kicad commit log for new
>> features, when one gets the urge to create documentation. This shall of
>> course not hinder anyone who submits a feature to kicad to also submit
>> documentation updates for it either.
>>
>> When we release I expect a release note to be composed that will describe
>> the new features as we did with http://kicad-pcb.org/post/release-4.0.0/
>>
>> 2017-11-09 12:39 GMT+01:00 Kristoffer Ödmark <kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>
>>> That doesnt sound like a good idea, when adding patches, just having to
>>> add a line or two to the commit message seems best, and I imagine the news
>>> or changelog file is just there to later help the kicad-doc repo to do a
>>> proper changelog. Having to go to a new repo seems a bit more annoying.
>>>
>>> Or skip the file totally this time, and just enfore the commit messages.
>>> This way this will not be such a hassle next time one wonders what have
>>> changed between versions.
>>>
>>> On 11/09/2017 11:05 AM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think this might be better handled as bugs on the kicad-doc repo. Then
>>>> everyone can contribute easily and we can track it for the documentation,
>>>> where the info is to be used anyways. For now label them new_kicad_feature
>>>> if it is.
>>>>
>>>> 2017-11-09 10:54 GMT+01:00 Kristoffer Ödmark <
>>>> kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx>>:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     I think for this to start happen, a decision has to be made, and
>>>>     enforced by everyone with commit access to the repo.
>>>>
>>>>     Bugfixes need not be tagged like this. Major changes only.
>>>>
>>>>     I still think a we should start collect a list in the repo with
>>>>     changes from kicad 4 up to the point this commit message policy is
>>>>     set. I for one love reading changelogs when upgrading, and I think
>>>>     the users are expecting this as well, and it probably will be useful
>>>>     in the FOSDEM presentation :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     On 11/04/2017 01:53 AM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         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
>>>>
>>>>         _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>     --       -Kristoffer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>>  -Kristoffer
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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