From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Wed Jan 21 09:36:49 2004
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Wed Jan 21 09:35:09 2004
Subject: [Rd] ChangeLog for R packages {was "Wish list"}
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401201724480.1345-100000@gannet.stats>
References: <mnlq00p8t4l26fhrulueermtcq82a6t3h4@4ax.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401201724480.1345-100000@gannet.stats>
Message-ID: <16398.14881.263753.148874@gargle.gargle.HOWL>

>>>>> "BDR" == Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk>
>>>>>     on Tue, 20 Jan 2004 17:26:58 +0000 (GMT) writes:

    BDR> Folks, Have you looked at R's own ChangeLog recently?

    BDR> You can insist on a ChangeLog, but some of us may be
    BDR> tempted to follow R's own example ....

what do you mean?  I think I haven't understood....

We've followed the rule to use
 NEWS +  "informative (but sometimes terse)" CVS messages.

Using a *manual* ChangeLog is a different approach and doing both
(or even all three) doesn't make sense at all.  That's why Greg
mentioned the "cvs2cl" tools where ChangeLog is autogenerated
from the CVS logs.

However, for (non-core) R *packages* things are very different:  
    The majority of package authors will never use CVS (and if
    they were urged to, they'd use almost empty log messages),
but encouraging them to use a ChangeLog file in a simple format
seems feasible IMO.

Martin


[Rd] ChangeLog for R packages {was "Wish list"}
Martin Maechler