Mailman 3 In what tense should the changelog be written? - Python-Dev

30 Apr 2021

      When one writes one's "blurb" for the changelog, in what tense should it 
be?  I mostly see entries in present tense:

    bpo-43660: Fix crash that happens when replacing sys.stderr with a
    callable that can remove the object while an exception is being
    printed. Patch by Pablo Galindo.

    bpo-41561: Add workaround for Ubuntu’s custom OpenSSL security level
    policy.

But occasionally I see entries in past tense:

    bpo-26053: Fixed bug where the pdb interactive run command echoed
    the args from the shell command line, even if those have been
    overridden at the pdb prompt.

    bpo-40630: Added tracemalloc.reset_peak() to set the peak size of
    traced memory blocks to the current size, to measure the peak of
    specific pieces of code.

I couldn't find any guidance in the Python Dev Guide after sixty seconds 
of poking around.

Obviously this isn't a big deal.  But it might be nice to try and nudge 
everybody in the same direction.  It'd be pleasant if the changelog read 
in a more unified voice, and using the same tense and sentence structure 
would help towards that goal.

If we arrived at a firm decision, maybe "blurb" et al could add a little 
text suggesting the proper style.

Cheers,

//arry/

In what tense should the changelog be written?

Larry Hastings

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