commit IDs in changelog messsages

[Sam Vilain]

On Sat, 2008-11-15 at 08:35 +0100, martin f krafft wrote:
> also sprach Manoj Srivastava <srivasta at acm.org> [2008.11.14.0719 +0100]:
> >   f) edit ./debian/changelog, adding in any additional language. I
> >      generally keep my commit messages and changlog entries distinct,
> >      since commit messages explain the code changes to a developer, and
> >      changelogs are geared towards the end user.
> 
> This is why Git allows you to write essays in addition to the short
> commit summary, which should always be geared to everyone.

Not really.  The commit body should explain the code for these purposes:

 1. reviewing of the code for acceptance
 2. understanding the intent of the change in retrospect (eg, for
annotation)

The intended audience is always people who are able to work on the code
base; of course the best ones target as wide a reviewing audience as
possible - but sometimes the change is too deep down for that to work.

The only time I can see this working is when you are packaging with the
actual source as a submodule; so that the changelog entries then are not
for developer consumption but specifically for the debian packaging.

Sam.