[Debichem-devel] RfC: Best practises: Summarizing major new features in debian/changelog

[Jordan Mantha]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Michael Banck<mbanck at debian.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think it would be nice if we summarize the major new (end-user
> visible!) features of a new upstream version in debian/changelog (if
> there are any, and if we readily know about them).
>
> Look e.g. at the postgresql-8.4 changelog for 8.4.0-1:
> http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/p/postgresql-8.4/current/changelog
>
> I was currently writing this up for the pymol-1.2 release (taken from
> http://www.pymol.org):
>
> pymol (1.2r1-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
>
>  * New upstream release.  Major new features include:
>    + Improved animation capabilities, with a movie timeline slider and
>      automatic object motion path generation.
>    + Selective surfacing of pockets and cavities (see Settings -> Surface
>      menu).
>    + Improved 3D small-molecule builder, with support for the "mengine"
>      Force-Field implementation.
>    + Improved movie export, with support for the mpeg_encode MPEG writer.
>    + Support for new stereo 3D displays.
>
>  [...]
>
> What do you think?

I totally agree. I've been bad about this but I really appreciate it
when other people do it. Besides giving info to people who read the
changelogs I think it's also helpful to the packager as a review of
any packaging changes that may be needed due to new features,
dependencies, etc.

-Jordan