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Linus: please write good git commit messages

github.com

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Re: Linus: please write good git commit messages

#2

Post by jacknagel »

It's hard to understate the importance of this.

GitHub's online editor has a default commit message along the lines of "Edited path/to/file", and I see a lot of pull requests with that message, and nothing else. That's about the most useless message possible, since it adds no information that isn't already implicit in the commit. It would be better to leave it blank and force users to at least write _something_.

Re: Linus: please write good git commit messages

#3

Post by tl »

jacknagel wrote: post #2

It's hard to understate the importance of this. GitHub's online editor has a default commit message along the lines of "Edited path/to/file", and I see a lot of pull requests with that message, and nothing else. That's about the most useless message possible, since it adds no information that isn't already implicit in the commit. It would be better to leave it blank and force users to at least write _something_.

Be careful, we do that by default and we get a lot of "commit", "commit", "commit $date", "merge commit" messages from some programmers. Either a programmer accepts that a meaningful message is important on commits, or they don't. It's a people problem not a technical one.

Re: Linus: please write good git commit messages

#4

Post by arkitaip »

tl wrote: post #3
jacknagel wrote: post #2

It's hard to understate the importance of this. GitHub's online editor has a default commit message along the lines of "Edited path/to/file", and I see a lot of pull requests with that message, and nothing else. That's about the most useless message possible, since it adds no information that isn't already implicit in the commit. It would be better to leave it blank and force users to at least write _something_.

Be careful, we do that by default and we get a lot of "commit", "commit", "commit $date", "merge commit" messages from some programmers. Either a programmer accepts that a meaningful message is important on commits, or they don't. It's a people problem not a technical one.

Ah, but what if we encouraged programmers to write better commit messages? What if we splashed on a bit of gamification to raise everyone's level of awareness? Maybe a badge on your profile page...?

Re: Linus: please write good git commit messages

#7

Post by drivingmenuts »

arkitaip wrote: post #4
tl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful, we do that by default and we get a lot of "commit", "commit", "commit $date", "merge commit" messages from some programmers. Either a programmer accepts that a meaningful message is important on commits, or they don't. It's a people problem not a technical one.

Ah, but what if we encouraged programmers to write better commit messages? What if we splashed on a bit of gamification to raise everyone's level of awareness? Maybe a badge on your profile page...?

How would you objectively determine the usefulness of a commit message, though? While it might contain all the necessary parts, there is no way to determine if the sum of the parts adds up to a useful whole.

Also, badges are done to death. Everyone's got badges these days - so much so they're like ads. Personally, I've developed a blind spot to most of them.

Re: Linus: please write good git commit messages

#9

Post by drivingmenuts »

caw wrote: post #6
rmc wrote: post #5

Am I the only one that thought this was someone asking Linus Torvalds to write better commit messages?

I agree. I was looking for the irony in that message where Linus didn't follow his own style guidelines...

Isn't the head guy pretty much allowed to ignore style guidelines in his own project?

I'm not saying that's a good thing, mind you.

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