GitLab reduced merge conflicts by 90% with changelog placeholders

[sytse]

https://about.gitlab.com/2015/02/10/gitlab-reduced-merge-conflicts-by-90-percent-with-changelog-placeholders/

[detaro]

Wouldn't a merge strategy for the changelog that knows that it can just append the lines behind each other be a more elegant solution?

[sytse → detaro]

Yes, great idea, see the second part of my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9029206

[sytse → sytse]

I've updated the article to include this suggestion.

[stephenr]

Wouldn't it be easier to create new change log entries from a combination of closed tickets and/or merge request descriptions?

[sytse → stephenr]

We did this before but it is a lot of work to come up with good descriptions, you really need to go understand each merge. Different people have merged different code and sometimes you already forgot what it was about. Also, the days just before release are already very busy.

There was a great comment on the article itself https://about.gitlab.com/2015/02/10/gitlab-reduced-merge-con... just using .gitattributes with `CHANGELOG merge=union` might do the trick

[sytse]

GitLab B.V. CEO here, happy to answer any questions and comments about how to reduce merge conflicts.

[sytse → sytse]

Also, I wonder if other people are also maintaining a changelog for their private projects.