GitHub - Shiny new commit styles

https://github.com/blog/926-shiny-new-commit-styles

by remi • 15 years ago

74 26 15 years ago

github.com

Kwpolska• 15 years ago

You shall say that it's on GitHub in the title.

remi• 15 years ago

You’re right; I didn’t realize I could edit the title after I posted it.

akkartik9• 15 years ago

I'm not sure how I feel about the present-tense dictum. When I commit frequently most of my commit messages end up in present tense anyway, but sometimes they don't, and it all still reads pretty well. I think the emphasis should be on frequent commits which keep the narrative of a codebase coherent and chugging along.

Here's an example changelog: http://github.com/akkartik/wart/commits/unstable. Criticisms?

chousuke2• 15 years ago

I think the present tense recommendation comes from the expectation that each commit works as a stand-alone patch. Thus the commit message does not describe what changes you did to the repository, but what the patch does to it.

Git provides a wealth of tools to craft perfect commits, and if you use them, it's not difficult to end up with a nice history of "add this, remove that, modify something else" changesets that (usually) would make sense even when separated from the surrounding history.

akkartik9• 15 years ago

"Git provides a wealth of tools to craft perfect commits"

Pointers please?

floggit• 15 years ago

git amend git rebate -i ...

lautis2• 15 years ago

Numbers in commit messages don't really make any sense. I don't understand what value they might have. The narrative of your codebase is hard to follow when large number of your commits don't have any message explaining what you've done.

I like to commit (quite) frequently when working on something, but later I feel that work-in-progress commits are just hindrance. When looking at project history after two year, I'll be glad if there is a single, larger commit "implemented feature x". Rebase is your friend.

akkartik9• 15 years ago

"Numbers in commit messages don't really make any sense. I don't understand what value they might have."

I like to refer to 'commit 347' rather than 'commit a3bh'. There's an implicit sense of how old a commit is.

DasIch• 15 years ago

What is with the numbers? Git is distributed, commits are inherently unordered, this will become very confusing if you have multiple committers.

Also provide useful messages, if you want to look up changes to something you really want to be able to do a `git log | grep foo`.

akkartik9• 15 years ago

There's no parallel development going on.

akkartik9• 15 years ago

"provide useful messages"

My convention is that commits without messages only reorganized or refactored code, without adding behavior or tests.

eric-hu• 15 years ago

I'm personally not that bothered by the difference in tenses, but I can see how it requires a slight mental-context-switch between reading various commits. Some peoples' eyes are more attuned to syntax and grammatical inconsistencies--for them it would be a bigger distraction.

In my mind, it's on par with inconsistent whitespace in code indentation. Sometimes I notice these things more and find it hard to focus on other details, but most of the time I can glance over them.

tuukkah• 15 years ago

I think the messages that are not in the suggested "do action" form are somewhat more ambiguous:

whitelist of un-GC'd syms - Did you implement a whitelist feature, write whitelist data, update whitelist data, work on whitelisting in general?

oops, hadn't fully finished a!b ssyntax - Did you finish the syntax, or did you work around it for now?

failing test for apply - Did you add the test, make the test pass?

As a non-native speaker I have to wonder if this is really about past tense vs. present tense though. How should I grammatically interpret the suggested "Fix bug" as opposed to the alternative "Fixed bug"?

Past: [I] fixed bug. [This] fixed bug.

Present: [I] fix bug. [This] fix bug. Fix bug!

Infinitive: [To] fix bug. [I want to] fix bug. [This serves to] fix bug.

The suggestion may actually be towards the last option that doesn't have a tense. It's like an item in a todo list. That would make the most sense?

akkartik9• 15 years ago

That's worth thinking about, thanks for the feedback!

lenary• 15 years ago

is it just me, or does anyone else think that though the design is prettier, it kinda makes other parts of the app look bad - for instance compare the commit style to the tree listings. it's not that one or the other look bad, it's just the dissimilarity is jarring.

wrl• 15 years ago

I agree, the new commits use a different motif than the old ones and it definitely looks odd (especially on the code tree pages). Maybe this is the sign of a coming design refresh?

zacclark• 15 years ago

I think it is, check out Kneath's (a designer at github) dribble:

http://dribbble.com/kneath

extramoose• 15 years ago

GitHub is doing a fantastic job of building a consistent presence from top to bottom. The changes as a whole have been extremely impressive over the past few months. I, as a designer that uses GitHub on a daily basis at work, am very enthusiastic about the latest updates, the new commit styles included. The GitHub team has been extremely quick to iterate and launch updates recently. I'm sure there's plenty more to come.

foobarbazetc• 15 years ago

Update GitHub:FI, please. :(

GitHub - Shiny new commit styles

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