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in reply to Module Change Log

Ignore it as nobody reads change logs anyway

Addressing this part in isolation, I hope you're joking.

In case not, it is worth stating that clear, complete change logs are highly important. When a new version is released the first question a user might ask is "Why?". It could be a security fix or another type of bug fix or a performance enhancement or a new feature or a removal of previously deprecated functionality/syntax or just typo fixes in POD or any combination thereof. The change log informs the user of whether (given their own individual circumstances) they must, should, might, shouldn't or mustn't upgrade.

If you are writing code yourself which has prerequisites, how do you know which version of those prerequisites your code requires? I often find that my code has casually used some feature of a rapidly-developing module which is not present in older versions. Without a change log there is no simple way to tell which version introduced this feature and therefore which version my code requires.

If you have different versions of a module running on different systems and some versions are reporting errors when others are not, how can you determine the reason if there is no changelog to enumerate the differences?

Good change logs are on the long list of things in IT which nobody really notices when they are there but it suddenly becomes clear how important they are when absent.


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