Re: release process

[Jens Granseuer <jensgr gmx net>]

Sergey Udaltsov wrote:
> So, how would you propose to automate that process?

I don't think this is something that can be automated. Deciding
which changes are important enough to appear in NEWS and writing
a short concise description for them requires a human.

> Regarding your reasons:
> 1. Sometimes one visible change consists of several commits. Things
> like build process fixes, small code reorganization etc would not be
> visible in these files at all

That's why I said "more or less".

> 2. There is README file - it could contains details about the process.
> If some newbie introduces the changes, and they are not mentioned in
> the release notes - I do not see it as a deadly problem. Frankly, I do
> not see the need in double-checking

That's bound to fail. I don't believe anyone reads README these days.
Certainly not people who post patches to bugzilla and are then told
"yeah, please commit". And IMO that's perfectly fine and
understandable.

> 3. Well, if we could formalize the way Commit messages are written, we
> could create a script which would prepend NEWS file automatically.
> That is a valid solution too. Could we have short guidelines (in
> README file perhaps)?

As I said I don't believe you can automate this and expect useful
NEWS files as output. Besides, ChangeLog entries should not be
written with regards to how well they can be (automatically)
translated into a line in NEWS, but to understand the actual
change. Which in turn makes it easy to write the NEWS line - for a
human.

Jens