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Do you see the commit history as a piece of living art, a representation of the community and culture that has produced it, or do you see it as a tool? I'm an
by DougWebb 11y ago
Do you see the commit history as a piece of living art, a representation of the community and culture that has produced it, or do you see it as a tool?
I'm an engineer, and I see the commit history as a tool. When I want to know what a block of code is for and why it was written the way it was, the commit history (if it is clean and granular) will tell me a lot about that, and will point me to authors, issues, features, and requirements where I can learn more. I don't care about the process of producing the code, I care about the end result. I get enough exposure to the process when I'm writing my own code.
- WorldMaker 11y agoI suppose I see commit history more interesting as works of art and archeology. Code history will be read more often than it will likely ever be interacted with. Like the scuffs in the marble, the fingerprints and brush strokes and little hairs in watercolor and oil painting, there can be beauty in the little flaws. I've had it put to me that an Architect deals solely with the art of a project and a Scientist deals solely with the science and theory; it's the work of an Engineer to deal in the practical middle where art meets science (meets the real world). Sometimes it is easy to overlook (or to want to overlook) the little bits of humanity in the machine; the various sorts of creative chaos in the vast ordered systems; the parts of the code that are art. There's no easy answers to much of this thread, because it is art, it is aesthetics. There's no "right" answer, just "this looks good and pleasing to me and my team" and working to find that practical Engineering border space between the unwavering art of the Architect and the similarly unwavering logic and discipline of the Scientist.