Non-informational commit messages

[Mark Junker]

Hi,

it'd be nice if something like

r14554: Delete riched20
r14555: Copy riched20

can be avoided in preference of the *cause* the required the changes above.

Everybody can see that riched20 was deleted and added afterwards but you 
cannot see *why* this has been done.

Regards,
Mark

[Casper Hornstrup]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Mark Junker
> Sent: 9. april 2005 03:33
> To: ReactOS Development List
> Subject: [ros-dev] Non-informational commit messages
>
> Hi,
>
> it'd be nice if something like
>
> r14554: Delete riched20
> r14555: Copy riched20
>
> can be avoided in preference of the *cause* the required the changes above.
>
> Everybody can see that riched20 was deleted and added afterwards but you
> cannot see *why* this has been done.
>
> Regards,
> Mark

Commit messages should explain *what* was changed, not *why*. If there is a need
to explain why, then it should be explained in the code instead.

Casper

[Mark Junker]

Casper Hornstrup schrieb:
> Commit messages should explain *what* was changed, not *why*. If there is a need
> to explain why, then it should be explained in the code instead.

Partially you're right. When you change a source file, you shouldn't 
write "file xyz.c changed". But instead you should write "enhanced 
functionality of abcxyz to allow this-and-that feature to work 
correctly". This was the problem I had with the commit messages 
mentioned by me. The information that a file or folder has been 
removed/added can be seen in the SVN log itself ... but not the reason 
why s/o did it - so an information like "folder asd removed" and "folder 
asd added" is not very informative unless you know that a source of WINE 
was re-imported.

Regards,
Mark