From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Junio C Hamano Subject: Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Cite the 50 char subject limit Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:23:24 -0700 Message-ID: <7vzkxb4j1v.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> References: <1280326285-10203-1-git-send-email-avarab@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: =?utf-8?B?w4Z2YXIgQXJuZmrDtnLDsA==?= Bjarmason X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Jul 28 19:23:50 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OeAM9-0002yk-6H for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:23:49 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755906Ab0G1RXe convert rfc822-to-quoted-printable (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:23:34 -0400 Received: from a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com ([208.72.237.25]:44126 "EHLO sasl.smtp.pobox.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755889Ab0G1RXb convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:23:31 -0400 Received: from sasl.smtp.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 28483C8C3E; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:23:31 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=pobox.com; h=to:cc:subject :references:from:date:message-id:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; s=sasl; bh=IYv38yUlIgoOGcYvZukG57Na4 2s=; b=xzgJCC0Z8XW47Z6wzuixNr+zbcwfeLhs282a2VNO88NMkFkiOMAyBvdlD qjxPtnD4kz1bubtFnnaoywAKNA9RqyoMQiQYJUbCkc5+3oncMTVoG0TUpbm+K54g 0IfQtMG1UKcmAOCFI6kXdUToNv1e4FI2OLC5QUSbsNUyO3p6M0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=pobox.com; h=to:cc:subject :references:from:date:message-id:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=sasl; b=KkYk+SMiQd2zuE7KYca /rLQ/pOf1yx30vRohfBMe+TShxSlZ4UDCMIjXVNtqrGR9WYjAWGIezjv9BsIgIBC WyAjDaQWa2KJEPczsDk5px+yCpEESLAAC+e0QHluWTuFHnpXq8ryBUQnG1BHreo+ V5bv2DjrQ8BfUnYB5eIE1z64= Received: from a-pb-sasl-quonix. (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05BA6C8C3B; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:23:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pobox.com (unknown [69.181.135.33]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 43501C8C38; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:23:26 -0400 (EDT) User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.2 (gnu/linux) X-Pobox-Relay-ID: D679F1DA-9A6C-11DF-90CE-9056EE7EF46B-77302942!a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: =C3=86var Arnfj=C3=B6r=C3=B0 Bjarmason writes: > Change the SubmittingPatches recommendations to mention the 50 > character soft limit on patch subject lines. 50 characters is the sof= t > limit mentioned in git-commit(1) and gittutorial(7), it's also the > point at which Gitweb, GitHub and various other Git front ends start > abbreviating the commit message. Hmph, we probably would want to do s/50 character/&s/ in the two manual pages. I do not think if anybody is ready to stand behind the specific number "50", and we can bikeshed about it separately. The spirit of having a soft limit is twofold: - It should fit on "git log --oneline" comfortably; - If your change is too complex to be summarized in such a short sentence, you probably are doing too many things in one commit. The first does not justify "50" any better than other arbitrary limit, = but with things like --graph and --source, anything longer makes the result= ing output very close to the edge of an 80-column terminal. The second does not justify "50" either, as your language may be verbos= e or terse (e.g. Japanese can cram far more information in a 140-char twe= et than somebody writing in English), but it is a more important one betwe= en the two rationales above.