[Zope-dev] Re: Extend specification of how to maintain the changelog

[Martijn Faassen]

Hi there,

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:02 PM, Christian Theune <ct at gocept.com> wrote:
[snip]
> I do not consider stuff within a version do be ordered by a given criterion,
> except maybe readability, so during development I tend to add stuff to the
> top, because it's easier to reach. Sometimes I add it in the middle because it
> seems easier to read.

I think the primarily criterion should be readability (if order
matters to improve readability), and the secondary criterion should be
time when the change was add (if it doesn't matter for readability).

Couldn't we standardize on something? I consider there two be two situations:

* you make a change and add something to the change log. Ordering is
by time (from top or bottom, not both ways :)

* you change the changelog for readability, grouping related items
together. Of course sometimes the first may lead to the second.
Ordering can be changed; you're refactoring the order, after all.

Compare with code: when refactoring it's okay to change the order of
code too if it improves readability, when doing normal fixes or tweaks
it's generally not the right thing to do, but sometimes a refactoring
happens because of a bugfix.

> So, I'm not concerned about the order that people add to those sets.

If I know I normally only have to check the bottom (or top) of each
section to see whether something got added since last time I checked,
there's less chance I'll miss it and make a mistake.

It's not a major point, but it'd be nice if everybody acted more or
less the same instead of changelog sections growing from both ends.

Regards,

Martijn