My Message on Commit Messages

Building and maintaining software is a collaborative effort and version control systems play a core role in supporting people in this. With this talk I want to raise awareness for the importance of commit messages, invite people to embrace them as communication tools and give some ideas on how to approach them and develop the respective mindset for writing useful commit messages.

The talk was given at RUG::B 01/2018

Transcript

1. COMMIT MESSAGES MY MESSAGE ON
2. max @klappradla
3. - DISCLAIMER - OPINIONS
4. GIT
5. Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals. - git man page -
6. WHY GIT?
7. COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION
8. A “commit” is a snapshot of your files. - jake boxer • github -
9. Stores the current contents of the index in a new commit along with a log message from the user describing the changes. - git man page | git commit -
10. COMMIT MESSAGE
11. CASE: INFORMATION MISSING
12. CASE:
 INFORMATION HUNT
13. A MINDSET FOR COMMIT MESSAGES
14. COMMUNICATION IS KEY
15. CONTEXT FOR YOU•OTHERS•FUTURE YOU
16. DIFF -> WHAT MESSAGE -> WHY
17. e8d3db2 fix
18. READ VS. WRITE COMMUNITY VS. AUTHOR
19. MAKE OTHERS’ LIVES EASIER
20. CONTENT OF A COMMIT MESSAGE
21. WHY IS THE CHANGE NECESSARY?
22. HOW DOES THIS ADDRES THE ISSUE?
23. WHAT ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS OF THIS CHANGE?
24. COMMIT MESSAGES AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL
25. THANX! YOU-IN-TWO-WEEKS FUTURE DEVELOPERS
26. GUIDELINES FOR COMMIT MESSAGE
27. SUBJECT BODY
28. The subject/body distinction may seem unimportant but it’s one of many subtle factors that makes Git history so much more pleasant to work with than Subversion. - tpope -
29. The subject line is used all over Git, oftentimes in truncated form if too long of a message was used - tpope -
30. SUBJECT
31. “IF APPLIED, THIS COMMIT WILL <SUBJECT>”
32. git commit -m …
34. commit.style BODY
35. .gitmessage
37. TICKET AS SUBJECT: LOOK-ELSEWHERE-PROBLEM
38. MERGE STRATEGIES
39. THINK ABOUT COMMIT MESSAGES git commit -m …