Re: Release notes

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> There are problems with this.

There are going to be problems with just about any proposal, but I think
updating the release notes incrementally is still a clear net win.

> First, since everyone isn't going to do it, I still have to go
> through all the CVS logs, and then I have to merge the created list
> to avoid duplicates.

A solution would be to require all the committers to do it: we can say
that any CVS commit that makes a user-visible change should update the
release notes as part of the commit. If anyone sees a commit that fails
to do this, they can flame^H email the guilty party. People submitting
patches can include an update to the release notes directly, or else the
committer can write the release note entry if necessary. This is similar
to the policy on documentation updates, which seems to have worked
decently well.

I would be happy to volunteer to do my best to ensure that this policy
is applied for the 8.3 development cycle, if enough people agree that
this is worth doing.

> Then there is the problem that we need consistent wording through the
> release notes, so again, I have to wack around some more text.

I think this is a strange objection. Many different people have
contributed to the documentation, and yet we've managed to keep the
wording reasonably consistent throughout -- I think we can manage
consistent usage in some release notes. Frankly, the grammar and diction
in the release notes is often not perfect on the first draft anyway, so
there needs to be copy-editing done regardless.

> Doing it in one pass is the most reliable, and efficient.

Does anyone else have any opinions on this?

-Neil