Sawyer X

Dave Rolsky has written a compelling post on how not to write a changes log. It's ironic (or is it? the meaning of "irony" is illusive) that while I have much criticism for the changes log of others (and have commented on them to people in the past), Dancer's changes log is not up to par with what I think it should be, nor what Dave thinks it should be (which is close to what I think).

Understanding Dancer's changes log

Dancer's changes log has two primary goals: mark down changes for Dancer users, and giving credit to the people who do it.

This means that in each version we have who did what change, and additional credit for whoever helped in any way.

While the current format of the changes log is not optimal, we cared more about maintaining the current state, and did not optimize it. Truth be told, it was a bad habit and none of us advocate the current style be remained.

A new path

So, agreeing with Dave about the correct format of a changes log, we will be writing the next log entries in a correct form, including dates of releases and an order of what's more crucial or important.

There is a sentence I've learned with time which serves me well, and I do suggest others learn from it as well: "It is only a mistake if you don't learn anything". Once you learn, it can become a lesson. Hence, we welcome any criticism (note "criticism", not "trashing" - which sometimes people confuse with legitimate criticism), in any form (blog post, pull request, commit comment, IRC rant, etc.) by anyone.

Dave, thanks! :)