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Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

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Re: Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

#31

Post by tomtomtom777 »

ketralnis wrote: post #18

I don't really ever want to read answers from GPT to questions that I didn't knowingly myself ask GPT. If GPT can write a commit message from you, don't write it at all and let me ask it that if that's what I want. It may be a positive to you to spend a few seconds less on commit messages but it's a net negative for the world for it to become polluted with vast amounts of flatly incorrect text with no knowledge as to…

For me the point of this demo is that even a good commit message is often redundant information.

As programmers we learn that adding a comment like:

   // The limit is 16
to

    const SOME_LIMIT = 16
is bad because is redundant information that serves no purpose to the reader and can easily misalign in the future.

So what's a good commit message for changing this limit? Ideally we want to describe why we've changed it but this information isn't always available so even when we're avoiding redundant comments we often use redundant commit messages like "increased SOME_LIMIT" to make browsing through history easier for others.

As we do not need to provide this information (it is already in the code), it seems like a reasonable idea for an AI to help us provide it.

Re: Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

#32

Post by TeMPOraL »

jart wrote: post #17
pachico wrote: post #5

I find commit messages have more value when they don't just repeat what you can see by looking at a diff but when they explain the reasons behind.

The point of a summarization model is if you have a thousand line change, it helps to have a one sentence explanation of what it is. The demo videos the author used here really don't do a good job communicating that, because the summary GPT-3 wrote for his one line commit was longer than the commit itself.

Right, and even if GPT-3 could summarize the thousand-line diff in a sensible way, without introducing any falsehoods, it would still be strictly worse than the developer writing a sentence explaining what they think they've accomplished with the commit.

It's just the same thing as with comments and "self-documenting code". The code tells you what (and if written carefully, it may be even somewhat effective at it). It can't tell you why. Neither can a GPT-3 summary of it.

Re: Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

#34

Post by TeMPOraL »

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #31
ketralnis wrote: post #18

I don't really ever want to read answers from GPT to questions that I didn't knowingly myself ask GPT. If GPT can write a commit message from you, don't write it at all and let me ask it that if that's what I want. It may be a positive to you to spend a few seconds less on commit messages but it's a net negative for the world for it to become polluted with vast amounts of flatly incorrect text with no knowledge as to…

For me the point of this demo is that even a good commit message is often redundant information. As programmers we learn that adding a comment like: // The limit is 16 to const SOME_LIMIT = 16 is bad because is redundant information that serves no purpose to the reader and can easily misalign in the future. So what's a good commit message for changing this limit? Ideally we want to describe why we've changed it but t…

> Ideally we want to describe why we've changed it but this information isn't always available

I struggle to imagine situation in which this is the case. Surely, even in the worst case of you being told to make a particular change with no explanation given, you can at least drop a "increased from 5 at a request of ${name of your boss}", or "increased from 5, see ticket #${ticket number}" in a comment, and/or a commit message.

Re: Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

#36

Post by AnimalMuppet »

satvikpendem wrote: post #15
deathanatos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh… there are really two types of coders. Those who things commits should have a single, obvious, minimal purpose, and who will split off unrelated changes into separate commits… … and those who tag you as a reviewer on +8,298, -1,943 commits/PRs with the commit message "JIRA-PROJ-84138".

> … and those who tag you as a reviewer on +8,298, -1,943 commits/PRs with the commit message "JIRA-PROJ-84138". At my workplaces, we've told people who do this to break up their larger commit into smaller ones before reviewing. If they haven't done that initially, well, their life is going to get harder for a few days.

I like it. Inflict the pain where it belongs.

Re: Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

#37

Post by TeMPOraL »

dheera wrote: post #20
ketralnis wrote: post #18

I don't really ever want to read answers from GPT to questions that I didn't knowingly myself ask GPT. If GPT can write a commit message from you, don't write it at all and let me ask it that if that's what I want. It may be a positive to you to spend a few seconds less on commit messages but it's a net negative for the world for it to become polluted with vast amounts of flatly incorrect text with no knowledge as to…

Except for startups when commit messages are more like "asdf", "aoeu", "quick fix", or "demo" because some investor barged in and demanded a demo before they would wire funds. If ChatGPT could change that to something like "disable current limits" or "disable safety checks" or whatever that might be marginally better.

A ChatGPT-generated message, pasted without editing, is purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information. This means I could just as well run it on your diff myself, if I thought it would be useful. More than that, when I do it a year or two after you made your commit, the then-current ChatGPT will likely do a much better job at summarizing the change. So perhaps it's best to leave auto-summarization to (interested) readers, and write a commit message with some actual information instead.

Re: Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)

#40

Post by dheera »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #37
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for startups when commit messages are more like "asdf", "aoeu", "quick fix", or "demo" because some investor barged in and demanded a demo before they would wire funds. If ChatGPT could change that to something like "disable current limits" or "disable safety checks" or whatever that might be marginally better.

A ChatGPT-generated message, pasted without editing, is purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information. This means I could just as well run it on your diff myself , if I thought it would be useful. More than that, when I do it a year or two after you made your commit, the then-current ChatGPT will likely do a much better job at summarizing the change. So perhaps it's best to leave auto-summariz…

> purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information

I mean, a human brain is arguably also a purely functional transformation adding zero information.

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