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Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

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Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#71

Post by munk-a »

evan_ wrote: post #64
rozab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most annoying quirks of LLMs for me is the insistence on, after being corrected, loudly noting what wasn't done. After getting it to change something stupid in code, it will leave a comment in the code boasting about how it doesn't do the stupid thing, which to future readers reads like an 'asbestos free!' label on a cereal box.

I’ve left so many PR reviews in the last few months that are essentially “this looks good but delete 80% of the comments.”

Lets assume one of two worlds - one where AI is constantly improving and one where the tooling is a dead end. In the first world the AI generated comments are no better than the commentary that would be generated in the next six months - in the second world the AI generated comments will obscure the human written comments.

In what world are AI generated comments actually value adds?

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#72

Post by throwaway613746 »

blazarquasar wrote: post #23
schainks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone's been committing with a bogus email address and they're still working on the project, shouldn't they clean up their own commits?

Yeah, using this tool for example?

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#73

Post by nkrisc »

mellosouls wrote: post #7

Hmmm, this seems to be making easy something you normally should not do.

Based on the name I have to imagine the author knew this. A knife is a dangerous tool if used improperly, and invaluably useful when used properly.

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#74

Post by ClikeX »

iamcoder18 wrote: post #11

This is cool, but has anyone ever needed to rewrite commit authors or dates?

Very rarely. But it can come up if you archive change history in git for things that aren't originally tracked in git.

Take laws for example. Legalize[1] is a project that documents all laws into a git structure where each distinct change is a commit with the proper timestamp of tha change. Sure, this specific project builds that entire git history once and it's unlikely a retroactive change required such edits. But do something like this for historical sources where information is still coming in, and you might need to change a date when new findings occur.

[1] https://github.com/legalize-dev/legalize

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#75

Post by orisho »

rozab wrote: post #61
NichoPaolucci wrote: post #26

“It never reimplements git — it shells out to the system git CLI and rebuilds commits with git commit-tree, reusing each commit's original tree so file contents are provably never changed.” Glad the LLM noted this - I was worried this would reimplement git

One of the most annoying quirks of LLMs for me is the insistence on, after being corrected, loudly noting what wasn't done. After getting it to change something stupid in code, it will leave a comment in the code boasting about how it doesn't do the stupid thing, which to future readers reads like an 'asbestos free!' label on a cereal box.

I have a contrarian take on this: if most people working on the codebase are using the same model, then these comments serve a very useful purpose: they tell the model's future self that despite its tendency towards this solution, it is incorrect and here's why. It encodes useful context right when the model needs it next to avoid making the same error.

I imagine this style of commenting is partially responsible for model improvement in SWE work, a trained trait through feedback, since it makes the comments actually useful. Not to you or me, but to an LLM.

Some of these errors are obvious to a human, that's why we find the comments unnecessary. But if everyone's using LLMs and said model tends to make this error, then they are very useful. It's like a comment you would leave for another human to help them avoid a footgun. It's just a LLM footgun, not a human one.

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#76

Post by sander1095 »

orisho wrote: post #75
rozab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most annoying quirks of LLMs for me is the insistence on, after being corrected, loudly noting what wasn't done. After getting it to change something stupid in code, it will leave a comment in the code boasting about how it doesn't do the stupid thing, which to future readers reads like an 'asbestos free!' label on a cereal box.

I have a contrarian take on this: if most people working on the codebase are using the same model, then these comments serve a very useful purpose: they tell the model's future self that despite its tendency towards this solution, it is incorrect and here's why. It encodes useful context right when the model needs it next to avoid making the same error. I imagine this style of commenting is partially responsible for…

I agree, but that information should be in the commit, which the model also has access to. Of course it's more token intensive to look through commits, but "good" models might know when some more research about a particular bit of code they find weird would be a good idea. Thoughts?

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#77

Post by xp84 »

webstrand wrote: post #33
schainks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone's been committing with a bogus email address and they're still working on the project, shouldn't they clean up their own commits?

Usually its me who has been committing with a bogus email address, because I don't like having my real user/email set in my $HOME/.gitconfig

Hi there, webstrand@Webstrands-MacBook-Pro.local - we meet again!

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#78

Post by YonathanTesfaye »

nkrisc wrote: post #73
mellosouls wrote: post #7

Hmmm, this seems to be making easy something you normally should not do.

Based on the name I have to imagine the author knew this. A knife is a dangerous tool if used improperly, and invaluably useful when used properly.

that was the idea

Re: Show HN: Git-knife – Edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

#79

Post by InsideOutSanta »

whateveracct wrote: post #68
saghm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, given that the English you wrote above didn't make it clear that was the only part you were complaining about, it's worth it to consider that maybe precision is hard in natural language regardless of how it's written

it is pretty clear in context given what i was responding to

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, too, but it seems to me that most people responding to you misunderstood your point.
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