changelogs?

[meowsbits]

re: https://github.com/etclabscore/pristine/blob/master/RELEASING.md#generate-changelog

Don’t let your friends dump git logs into changelogs.
https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/

This is just a devil's advocate note. Personally I'd be pretty inclined to use programmatic means to handle what I would consider to be a chore of handling changelog maintenance.

With that said... Do we really need changelogs as a standard-across-the-board artifact? For me, to answer questions around what has been happening on the development of projects I typically use a combination of git logs, release notes, the github issue tracker, and, if necessary, an internet search engine. I don't know if a changelog has ever held my attention for more than 4 seconds.

[meowsbits]

Also, handling changelog maintenance carries a relatively lot of complexity, especially if it's programmatically generated... should it be edited before a tag? Before a release? Before a push? Should we be validating these expectations on the CI? Do we want git hooks to manage this?

[shanejonas]

heres an example of a tool that takes care of this process that aligns with our specs: https://github.com/semantic-release/semantic-release#release-steps

[shanejonas]

i think the big reason this should be automated stems from this:

This removes the immediate connection between human emotions and version numbers, strictly following the Semantic Versioning specification.

[shanejonas]

the changelogs are also used to make the release notes for github releases. its all part of the same thing IMO

[shanejonas]

rel #13
rel #14