Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Why commit messages rather than code comments?

I guess "Code can't lie, comments can". At least the commit comment stick to the affected code and can't be moved that easily.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#5

Post by gentleman11 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

Website will not let me edit with the back button on safari, had to close the tab to escape. Why do so many sites do that?

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#6

Post by hasmolo » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Why commit messages rather than code comments?

I've seen that useful commit message make it incredibly easy to see where the code came from and is going. It also never gets 'out of sync' like code comments tend to, as it's a comment on a static place in the code, not a dynamic one.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#7

Post by hirundo » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it.

I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better would only be that much more fun. But this is a data point against that correlation.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#8

Post by oleks » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

yonixw wrote: post #4

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Why commit messages rather than code comments?

I guess "Code can't lie, comments can". At least the commit comment stick to the affected code and can't be moved that easily.

Similarly, comments can lie, but a commit-history cannot. That is, if the commits are digitally signed. Then you know something about who made the change when, and get a hint at why. This is much more valuable than code comments.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#9

Post by antongribok » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Why commit messages rather than code comments?

Because code (along with comments) can go away, but commit history will stay.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#10

Post by sys_64738 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #7

This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it. I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better…

Technical leaders often get promoted away from their core skills into managerial or administrative type roles. This ones sounds like a gate keeping role