4 ms·

I have to disagree on "Capitalize the subject line". If you're using lower case consistently, it's an unnecessary stroke of the shift key.

seiji 11y ago
If your project has rules, follow the rules of the project. Also, the project should follow standard rules everybody else uses (so everybody doesn't have to re-learn project-specific demands). So, titles of commit messages are caps and don't end with a full stop.
Pyxl101 11y ago
Commit messages sometimes need to be longer to explain something. When that happens, it's nice for the subject to be the first sentence (possibly with the rest on another line). Don't warn the user about foo. The foo warning is superfluous because ... > it's an unnecessary stroke of the shift key This is not a good reason to argue for a style convention. The effort or time of pressing "shift+letter" is no greater than simply pressing "letter" for all experienced typists since they are pressed simultaneously and the decision to capitalize a letter and execute the necessary keypress is completely automatic and fluid. If we were discussing rarely-used symbols and keystrokes then the analysis might be different. There is great value in following the language's style convention since its readers are familiar with that convention. Upper case denotes the beginning of a sentence. When you scan a series of lines beginning in upper case, there's a visual cue that they're each their own unit, as opposed to (for example) the wrapping of a previous line. Don't warn in case foo Update bar dependency Warn user when baz These scan better to me as a series of three independent thoughts than the equivalent in lower case, which seems like a poorly written haiku: don't warn in case foo update bar dependency warn user when baz Personal preference might differ, but my opinion based on seeing many variations is that programming texts such as documentation, commit messages, etc., are most readable when they follow the syntax and style of regular English text, to leverage all of the standard cues that the reader is familiar with. Readability usually suffers when one breaks from convention. Lastly, following regular conventions gives you the advantage that you can copy/paste text across various scenarios without having to change it. Need to reference a commit message in an email? Well, just copy it in. No need to mess with the capitalization. All things considered I see no good reason to begin documentation or commit messages in lower case given the overwhelming conventions to the contrary that exist in our language.

seiji 11y ago

If your project has rules, follow the rules of the project. Also, the project should follow standard rules everybody else uses (so everybody doesn't have to re-learn project-specific demands). So, titles of commit messages are caps and don't end with a full stop.

Pyxl101 11y ago

Commit messages sometimes need to be longer to explain something. When that happens, it's nice for the subject to be the first sentence (possibly with the rest on another line). Don't warn the user about foo. The foo warning is superfluous because ... > it's an unnecessary stroke of the shift key This is not a good reason to argue for a style convention. The effort or time of pressing "shift+letter" is no greater than simply pressing "letter" for all experienced typists since they are pressed simultaneously and the decision to capitalize a letter and execute the necessary keypress is completely automatic and fluid. If we were discussing rarely-used symbols and keystrokes then the analysis might be different. There is great value in following the language's style convention since its readers are familiar with that convention. Upper case denotes the beginning of a sentence. When you scan a series of lines beginning in upper case, there's a visual cue that they're each their own unit, as opposed to (for example) the wrapping of a previous line. Don't warn in case foo Update bar dependency Warn user when baz These scan better to me as a series of three independent thoughts than the equivalent in lower case, which seems like a poorly written haiku: don't warn in case foo update bar dependency warn user when baz Personal preference might differ, but my opinion based on seeing many variations is that programming texts such as documentation, commit messages, etc., are most readable when they follow the syntax and style of regular English text, to leverage all of the standard cues that the reader is familiar with. Readability usually suffers when one breaks from convention. Lastly, following regular conventions gives you the advantage that you can copy/paste text across various scenarios without having to change it. Need to reference a commit message in an email? Well, just copy it in. No need to mess with the capitalization. All things considered I see no good reason to begin documentation or commit messages in lower case given the overwhelming conventions to the contrary that exist in our language.