We're nearly ready to enable the journal on our new web site, and we're considering renaming it to a changelog (or perhaps change log) to use more conventional terminology. Before we do so we wanted to first check with the community. Would anyone be opposed to this? Note that the URLs will redirect automatically, so there is no need for concern there.

Old habits die hard.

Most people still call FX “master” when you guys are not looking
But I personally don't have anything against the new name.

Nothing against “Changelog”, but “Journal” is better (and so is “Master” ).
I personally like all the small things that give Houdini (and its larger environment) a different identity.

I would keep it to Journal, unless it's the actual change log from the source tree

I agree with goldleaf. Journal seems more appropriate to me given that the information contained in it is not automatically generated and is generally a partial/incomplete list of changes. It's essentially kind of like a “highlights” list.

Or you know, make it an much more accurate and complete change log

I prefer the ol Journal to, lets keep it that way.

goldleaf
I would keep it to Journal, unless it's the actual change log from the source tree

Internally, it's tightly linked to the source tree; we commit a file into a particular branch of Houdini and some automated systems assemble the log messages into a database and upload them to the web site.

It's definitely not as tightly linked to the source tree as our commit logs, but that would be too much information to sift through, hehe. Instead, it's a chronologically ordered list of notable changes for each build of Houdini, which is, well…, exactly how they describe a change log here: http://keepachangelog.com/ [keepachangelog.com]

graham
Journal seems more appropriate to me given that the information contained in it is not automatically generated and is generally a partial/incomplete list of changes. It's essentially kind of like a “highlights” list.

Agreed, definitely not automatically generated and only showing notable changes. …But again, that's exactly what a change log is.

graham
Or you know, make it an much more accurate and complete change log

Hehe, the intention of it is to be accurate and complete, so if we're missing important things then it's a failure on our part, regardless of whether we call it journal or change log.

Mostly, I'd like to remove one more, albeit small, barrier for new users coming to Houdini by avoiding terminology that's different only for the sake of being different. I slightly worry that those users may not even be seeing this forum post, though, so we may not capture their voice.

I've always thought journalism stands higher than logging, but what I know…

I'm a new user and I couldn't actually find the changelog at first. I googled Houdini changelog and found the Houdini 8 changelog. Then I returned and clicked the “Main Journal - Houdini” link I skipped before and was surprised when it was actually a changelog. To me journal either sounds like an academic thing with a bunch of scientific articles or something like “Today was a nice sunny day. Also I fixed Polybevel.” To me “changelog” makes more sense.

“Journal / Changelog” would satisfy everyone IMO.

An observation though; did Apple add a ‘Start’ menu so Windows users would be able feel more comfortable…

I always thought Journal was a great choice. It's personal :-)