From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-8.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,MENTIONS_GIT_HOSTING, SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2FC68C433DB for ; Thu, 24 Dec 2020 04:25:17 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C5B6B22AAC for ; Thu, 24 Dec 2020 04:25:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726596AbgLXEWv (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Dec 2020 23:22:51 -0500 Received: from outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu ([18.9.28.11]:56468 "EHLO outgoing.mit.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726350AbgLXEWv (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Dec 2020 23:22:51 -0500 Received: from callcc.thunk.org (pool-72-74-133-215.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [72.74.133.215]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 0BO4LsRH018764 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 23 Dec 2020 23:21:55 -0500 Received: by callcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 6C28B420280; Wed, 23 Dec 2020 23:21:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2020 23:21:54 -0500 From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" To: Mike McLean Cc: "brian m. carlson" , git@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Git Feature Request (Commit Message editing directly from interactive rebase control file) Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 12:17:26AM +0000, Mike McLean wrote: > These seem fair concerns. > > Detailed multi-line commits are something that I know exist, but I've > never seen much need or use for, personally, and no project teams I've > ever worked on have used them. > But if that's the declared preferred-approach then I agree that this > feature would be actively detrimental to that and thus is not > appropriate. The preferred approach is a single line summary of the commit, followed by a body of text explaining the "why" of a commit. In some cases, the "why" may be several paragraphs explaining a one line change. For example, in this commit, see how much explanation was given for a single _character_ change: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tytso/ext4.git/commit/?h=dev&id=5a3b590d4b2db187faa6f06adc9a53d6199fb1f9 Having detailed messages is critically important; since even the commit author is not likely to remember all of the details of a particular change a even few months later --- and when examining changes that was made by others, sometimes years latter, context can be critical to understanding what was going on. Certainly, if I were reviewing some public git repository belonging to someone who was interviewing for a position at $WORK, and they had one line commit descriptions, I personally would consider that to be a signal that their software engineering skills might be lacking. Having good commit descriptions is right up there with having good regression tests and having a second engineer do code reviews (which include reviewing the commit description for sufficiency) as part of basic software development practice. Cheers, - Ted