Add the fucking change log
Every time I upgrade my project’s dependencies using npm-upgrade and it cannot find a change log I create an issue titled “Add change log”. Most of them were ignored, sometimes maintainers answer something that means “fuck off”, very rarely they listen.
A good change log answers these questions for the project’s user:
- What’s the new value for my project in the new version?
- What are the breaking changes?
- How can I migrate my codebase to the new version?
- Were my issues fixed?
A change log is a tool that helps you decide to upgrade or not and to evaluate the benefits and the cost of the upgrade.
A good change log is:
- Written for humans, not computers.
- Understandable by users, not just contributors.
- Not a Git commit log.
- Written by a project
maintainer — don’t ask for a pull request.
You should read this awesome guide and add a change log to your open source project today.