[QGIS-Developer] Changelog for 3.8! ARgh!

[Matthias Kuhn]

Hi Nyall,

Ouch, that's a real pity. Releasing the version without a changelog is a 
communication-GAU we should try to avoid.

As a first step I have just added the new version to projecta 
http://changelog.qgis.org/en/qgis/version/3.8/

I'll try to fill it up at least with some basics, but I won't be able to 
do it all on my own, so anyone else with a bit of spare time please jump 
in and fill the gaps!

If we ship the next release towards mid next week we should be able to 
put together something if everyone spends some time.


Now that this is sorted out:

Yes, I think it would make a lot of sense to integrate the changelog 
creation directly with labels into pull requests.

Since projecta is also based on markdown this should all play nicely 
together. And we could even add an (optional) #Changelog section to the 
pull requests and some other tags to automatically set funder etc. so 
one could already write the whole changelog entry during the development 
cycle. That should easily pay back with all the volunteer time that is 
saved during the already busy run up time to release!

Resource wise, most the allocated time in the grant proposal is for 
getting the service up and running and integrating with all the 
notification hooks. Parsing the content and sending it to another API 
should be pretty much straightforward. The main question would rather be 
if creation of new versions can also be automated and how to decide to 
which version a new feature should be sent (i.e. find out the "current" 
version). The best match for this would probably be to use github 
milestones. In the end I would say that this should increase the offer 
by 20%.

Tim, is everything ready on your end for that?

Best regards

Matthias


On 6/21/19 2:52 AM, Nyall Dawson wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> It just struck me that we're finalizing 3.8 in < 24 hours, and our
> visual changelog is.... completely non-existent. As in, we have NO
> entries, and not even a version number created yet.
>
> This is far from ideal, since the visual changelog is basically the
> only way we have of informing users of all the lovely new toys we've
> spent the last 4 months slaving away at making. If users don't even
> know these exist, there's basically no point in writing them :(
>
> In the past I've spent considerable time in the lead up to a release
> trawling through the git logs and adding dummy entries for all new
> features/stuff to highlight, which a handful of others have then spent
> HOURS fleshing out into pretty/nicely readable entries. Unfortunately
> I have no spare time to do that this round.
>
> Suffice to say, I think it's clear that this process was never great,
> and has totally broken down this time.
>
> It seems to me like Matthias' grant proposal covering documentation
> Pull Requests would tie in very nicely here. If that proposal is
> successful, and he can get the contents of feature pull requests
> pushed to documentation PRs, then it's a natural step to extend this
> and also push the same feature PR descriptions automatically to the
> changelog.
>
> So I have some questions:
> 1. Matthias: Do you think this would be a possible extension of your
> proposal? How much extra would you need to cover it?
> 2. Tim: Does the changelog API already exist which would make this
> possible? OR if not, would it be tricky/costly to develop?
> 3. How can we make this a reality? Who needs payment, and who can make
> this payment happen?
>
> -- OR --
>
> 4. Who is going to take this on for future releases and ensure we have
> a changelog ready to go at launch time?
>
> and finally, the most pertinent question right now:
>
> 5. Who the heck can get a changelog in place for 3.8.0? Who has 2-3
> days spare they want to volunteer into getting this in place?
>
> Nyall
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