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[flux <flux AT sourcemage.org>]

Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik (ruskie AT codemages.net) wrote [09.10.09 01:45]:
> :2009-10-08T16:06:Eric Sandall:
> 
> > > Has anyone thought anymore of having HISTORY auto-generated from `git
> > > commit`? It'd be nice to not have to enter the information twice. ;)
> > > That means our commit messages would have to be more verbose than they
> > > currently our. ;)
> > > 
> > > ----
> > > Brief one-liner
> > > 
> > > Normal HISTORY entry
> > > ----
> > > 
> > > e.g.
> > > ----
> > > ekiga: Updated to 3.0
> > > 
> > > DETAILS: Updated to 3.0
> > > ----
> > > 
> > > Then `git commit` would add all but the newline to HISTORY. I suppose we
> > > should move this to SM-Discuss? :)
> > 
> > Justin brought up an idea in
> > https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/sm-discuss/2009-October/019787.html:
> > I think that the auto-generated commit entries (I assume you mean
> > specifically the commit messages) would only be appropriate for routine
> > commits done in the grimoire, such as simple spell updates or creations.
> > There would need to be an easy way to override that function though for
> > non-routine cases.
> > 
> > Depending on one's editor, this could be accomplished relatively easily.
> > However, a better solution would be to implement this as a git hook
> > (PREPARE-COMMIT-MSG, so that the editor is still brought up and the
> > template can easily be modified?) within the grimoire git repository,
> > which could be tracked by the repository and thus all clones of the main
> > repository would pull it in.
> 
> I still don't see the benefit in this since it still requires the guru
> to write it out on his own(not to mention it still doesn't solve "It'd
> be nice to not have to enter the information twice" since you generally
> don't, commit messages tend to be one liners while HISTORY entries tend
> to be verbose). Also I consider this a bad idea as eventually this
> would degenerate into just:
> date guru <email>
> \t * Modified spell to support foobarf and version update
> 
> Instead of a proper detailed HISTORY entry we have now.
> 
> I actually find it a good idea to have the detail in HISTORY we have
> now. On multiple levels at that.
> a) it makes me think over what was changed and consider if there is
>    anything wrong
> b) it makes it easy to trace when something happened without needing to
>    sift through diffs/commit logs etc...
> c) automation - I tend to quite often do simple things like
>    for spell in changed-spells ; do
>      git commit -m "$spell: version update to $version" $spell
>    done
>    This way only the commit msg changes and I don't have to worry about
>    all the minor details that can be done in DETAILS at such times, old
>    variables removed, website update, description update not to mention
>    if I there's also DEPENDS changes due to the update and BUILD etc...
>    This is currently easy but after that it wouldn't be since you would
>    need to have a highly specific commit msg for each spell
> 
> If this were to be implemented I think it would need to be optional.
> 
> Just my 0.02€

After reading your reply, I see that I misinterpreted Eric's suggestion,
and you interpreted my message to match Eric's suggestion. My
suggestion was actually to automate commit messages using the
information in the HISTORY entry, rather than the other way around
(automating HISTORY from the commit message).

-- 
Justin "flux_control" Boffemmyer
Cauldron wizard and general mage
Source Mage GNU/Linux
http://www.sourcemage.org

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