Community commit messages

[Loui Chang]

Hey TUs,
Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.

Thanks.

[Ronald van Haren]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> Hey TUs,
> Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
> to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
> Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.
>
> Thanks.
>
>

FS#1234 - ypbind-mt needs to be upgraded on cvs

it was fixed in August of 2004 :-p

Ronald

[Andrea Scarpino-3]

On 06/11/2009, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> Hey TUs,
> Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
> to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
> Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.
When you read 'FS#1234' as commit message I think you understand that
it means "fixed bug report #1234". So, if you want to investigate on
that commit you have a wonderful page on flyspray.

Regards

--
Andrea `bash` Scarpino
Arch Linux Developer

[Gergely Imreh]

2009/11/7 Andrea Scarpino <andrea@...>:
> On 06/11/2009, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
>> Hey TUs,
>> Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
>> to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
>> Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.
> When you read 'FS#1234' as commit message I think you understand that
> it means "fixed bug report #1234". So, if you want to investigate on
> that commit you have a wonderful page on flyspray.
>

Still, the first line of commit message is there to give a fast
overview what happened, only have to check the wonderful flyspray if
you are interested. For Loui's example: you'd have to check every
single commit manually.
Also, the fix many times not directly what the bug report is about -
but what was uncovered during the bug-report discussion. Thus not only
have to check the bug report header, but the whole thing every
time....

Is it hard to spend an extra 5 second to write a short summary to keep
the good practice and also save other people minutes?

Just an opinion...
   Greg

[Loui Chang]

On Fri 06 Nov 2009 18:51 +0100, Ronald van Haren wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> > Hey TUs,
> > Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
> > to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
> > Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
>
> FS#1234 - ypbind-mt needs to be upgraded on cvs
>
> it was fixed in August of 2004 :-p

That's just an example of the types of messages that are committed.
I didn't bother recording the actual numbers, so I just wrote 1234.
Maybe 9999 would have been more obvious. Anyways I hope you are not
confused and you understand my point.

[Ronald van Haren]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:

> On Fri 06 Nov 2009 18:51 +0100, Ronald van Haren wrote:
>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
>> > Hey TUs,
>> > Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
>> > to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
>> > Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.
>> >
>> > Thanks.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> FS#1234 - ypbind-mt needs to be upgraded on cvs
>>
>> it was fixed in August of 2004 :-p
>
> That's just an example of the types of messages that are committed.
> I didn't bother recording the actual numbers, so I just wrote 1234.
> Maybe 9999 would have been more obvious. Anyways I hope you are not
> confused and you understand my point.
>

gheh lol, I understood your point (note the ':-p' after my message).

Either way, most of the time I agree it's a good idea to put a simple
message after the bug idea, as long we don't write whole stories
(there is the bug report for that). It makes it eassier to spot things
of interest, I don't know bug numbers by heart.

Ronald

[Loui Chang]

On Fri 06 Nov 2009 19:07 +0100, Andrea Scarpino wrote:
> On 06/11/2009, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> > Hey TUs,
> > Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
> > to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
> > Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.

> When you read 'FS#1234' as commit message I think you understand that
> it means "fixed bug report #1234". So, if you want to investigate on
> that commit you have a wonderful page on flyspray.

That's almost like saying we should just do away with commit messages
completely and just look at the diff to figure out what was done.
The revision number obviously refers to the diff, which contains the
literal change. Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily make things very
clear.

Commit messages should explain the commit, clarify reasons for it and
not fully rely on outside reference.

[Daenyth Blank]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 13:36, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> Commit messages should explain the commit, clarify reasons for it and
> not fully rely on outside reference.
>
>
At least for most of my updates, it's nothing more than pkgver/md5
changes. Do I really need to elaborate beyond the summary line?

[Ray Rashif]

2009/11/7 Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@... <daenyth%2Barch@...>>

> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 13:36, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> > Commit messages should explain the commit, clarify reasons for it and
> > not fully rely on outside reference.
> >
> >
> At least for most of my updates, it's nothing more than pkgver/md5
> changes. Do I really need to elaborate beyond the summary line?
>

-m "Updated foo to 1.24 from 1.23" should suffice in that case and qualify
as "explanation-cum-clarification" :)

[Ionut Biru]

On 11/06/2009 09:09 PM, Ray Rashif wrote:

> 2009/11/7 Daenyth Blank<daenyth+arch@...<daenyth%2Barch@...>>
>
>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 13:36, Loui Chang<louipc.ist@...>  wrote:
>>> Commit messages should explain the commit, clarify reasons for it and
>>> not fully rely on outside reference.
>>>
>>>
>> At least for most of my updates, it's nothing more than pkgver/md5
>> changes. Do I really need to elaborate beyond the summary line?
>>
>
> -m "Updated foo to 1.24 from 1.23" should suffice in that case and qualify
> as "explanation-cum-clarification" :)

the default message is "updpkg: $pkname $pkgver"
i really like that in this thread only TUs to participate.

i'm totally agree with you Loui. I'll try my best in the future to add
descriptive messages.

--
Ionut

[Chris Brannon-2]

Ionut Biru wrote:
> the default message is "updpkg: $pkname $pkgver"

communitypkg doesn't prompt for a message.  I stopped using it during
the cvs -> svn transition, because I didn't have a version that used
svn.  The nice thing about calling svn commit directly is that it prompts
you for a commit message, and even spawns an editor so you can write it.
There is no "default".
Yay for doing things by hand!

-- Chris

[Jaroslav Lichtblau]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 08:32:31PM +0100, Chris Brannon wrote:

> Ionut Biru wrote:
> > the default message is "updpkg: $pkname $pkgver"
>
> communitypkg doesn't prompt for a message.  I stopped using it during
> the cvs -> svn transition, because I didn't have a version that used
> svn.  The nice thing about calling svn commit directly is that it prompts
> you for a commit message, and even spawns an editor so you can write it.
> There is no "default".
> Yay for doing things by hand!
>
> -- Chris
>

I think communitypkg pops up a window on my machine asking for commit
message. I was using it, but just with the short cryptic messages Loui
mentioned. I promise I will change this :)

Cheers
Jaroslav

--
"Plan to throw one away.  You will anyway."
- Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"

[Laszlo Papp-2]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> Hey TUs,
> Please make descriptive commit messages when committing changes
> to SVN. I've seen a lack of messages, or cryptic ones like 'FS#1234'.
> Please describe the change, or the issue it's solving in plain language.
>
> Thanks.

Maybe it's worth to express it in the documentation/wiki if it's not
described at this momment, if you feel it useful.

[Loui Chang]

On Fri 06 Nov 2009 14:02 -0500, Daenyth Blank wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 13:36, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@...> wrote:
> > Commit messages should explain the commit, clarify reasons for it and
> > not fully rely on outside reference.

> At least for most of my updates, it's nothing more than pkgver/md5
> changes. Do I really need to elaborate beyond the summary line?

Yeah I'd say for package upgrades that should be enough. When there are
bug fixes or other changes a more descriptive commit message would be
appreciated.

[xyne]

Chris Brannon wrote:

> Ionut Biru wrote:
> > the default message is "updpkg: $pkname $pkgver"
>
> communitypkg doesn't prompt for a message.  I stopped using it during
> the cvs -> svn transition, because I didn't have a version that used
> svn.  The nice thing about calling svn commit directly is that it prompts
> you for a commit message, and even spawns an editor so you can write it.
> There is no "default".
> Yay for doing things by hand!
>
> -- Chris

I've been using my own scripts to handle build->upload->commit. I'll
tweak those to prompt for commit messages instead of appending whatever
default message I've been using.

[Allan McRae-3]

Xyne wrote:

> Chris Brannon wrote:
>> Ionut Biru wrote:
>>> the default message is "updpkg: $pkname $pkgver"
>> communitypkg doesn't prompt for a message.  I stopped using it during
>> the cvs -> svn transition, because I didn't have a version that used
>> svn.  The nice thing about calling svn commit directly is that it prompts
>> you for a commit message, and even spawns an editor so you can write it.
>> There is no "default".
>> Yay for doing things by hand!
>>
>> -- Chris
>
> I've been using my own scripts to handle build->upload->commit. I'll
> tweak those to prompt for commit messages instead of appending whatever
> default message I've been using.
>  

Why?  What is wrong with the scripts in devtools?   It is just
'makechrootpkg' followed by 'communitypkg "message"'.


You are lucky Aaron is on holiday because people not using those scripts
is one of his pet peeves. :)

[Chris Brannon-2]

Alan McRae wrote:
> Xyne wrote:
> > I've been using my own scripts to handle build->upload->commit. I'll
> > tweak those to prompt for commit messages instead of appending whatever
> > default message I've been using.
> >  
>
> You are lucky Aaron is on holiday because people not using those scripts
> is one of his pet peeves. :)

Hrm.  Looks like I have a retraction / apology to make!
The default message went away from communitypkg months ago.  Just checked.

I'm going to go back to using the scripts; wouldn't want to
be a target in anyone's crosshairs *grin*!

-- Chris

[xyne]

> Why?  What is wrong with the scripts in devtools?   It is just
> 'makechrootpkg' followed by 'communitypkg "message"'.
>
>
> You are lucky Aaron is on holiday because people not using those scripts
> is one of his pet peeves. :)
>

I wrote my own during the transition before the old ones were updated
to handle SVN. They plug into the system which I use to update the
projects on my site and they work as expected. There's no reason not to
use them right now.

Now stop bumping this so it can get buried before
I have to dodge falling cars. :P