Re: GIT and CVS

Alfred M. Szmidt
2011-10-13T22:19:47Z

> Could you explain how `git log' replaces ChangeLog? It doesn't do
> much more than what `cvs log' does, so you still need to write
> which function/variable was modified, and git log doesn't do that
> as far as I know (it only lists which files, and how many lines
> where added/delete which isn't very useful).

You have primarily `git annotate [revision]' which is like `cvs
annotate' but with the speed of GIT you can really use it. You
have also `git log -S [-p]' where you can filter patches on
specific text changes, it is also very fast.

While useful, they don't replace information of this type:

* configure.ac (tic6x-*-*): Remove gdb from noconfigdirs.

You still have to store that information _somewhere_, be it in a file
or in the commit message. I just don't see how annotate/log replaces
that here, maybe it should? I don't know, but entries like that are
super useful to trace history of things.

As a side node, Coreutils stores "ChangeLog entries" in the commit
message, and dumps it to disk when they make a release. It seems to
work well for them.