Hi!
I usually keep changelogs for my projects because I think they are really useful, not only to track the changes and not to be lost between them, but also to share with work mates or even to share with the project managers.
I follow different strategies to track the changes and it always depends of some facts, for example:
- If I already release a first version of the project, I apply the semantic versioning specification. So I try to keep a changelog related with the version.
- But sometimes I have not release a version yet, because it is a project under development of the first version or we don’t consider it to have the features needed to be considered as 0.1.0 version. In these cases I also write a changelog, but usually date-based. For example, I am working in a #nerves project in which I have not released a first version of the firmware yet, but I have to present the changes and new features done or in which I am working, so I attached to the release file name a date and then in the changelog I track what is done in this version.
I also have used another strategies but I am interested to know what others do and how they usually track the changes, because it is probably that I could improve my workflow knowing more about how other developers works.
Of course, there are practices that I don’t seem very useful, like the changelogs that are composed of commits, because I think it can be confused and for that I can see directly the commits made in the repository.
I usually work with #elixir so I am also interested in tools that can help to use changelogs or even to bump the version (something that sometimes I miss because I am bit clueless hehe). I searched on Hex for “changelog” and I found some packages to work with that, like git_ops (git_ops | Hex) and version_release (https://hex.pm/version_release).
I already have some pending reading, like Keep a Changelog, that seems a spec for writing changelogs with useful advices. If you know some interesting reading about it, I will be really grateful if you share it here.
And, as an extra (
) bonus question: if you a project in which you are working that it is not prepared yet to be considered as a 0.1.0 version but you have to show to your work mates and to the project manager, do you think it would be appropriate and useful to present them as release candidate versions?
I wish someone finds this topic as interesting as it is for me 