It is hard to accurately compare software to any other craft because changes are requested practically forever. (Nobody asks a woodworker to go back and add a

It is hard to accurately compare software to any other craft because changes are requested practically forever. (Nobody asks a woodworker to go back and add a 4th drawer to a dresser that was built 6 months ago.) I find that highly-granular revision control systems go a long way toward avoiding cruft and they remove the temptation to cut corners. When you are halfway through a huge change and you encounter something that is causing problems, carve out the problem into a separate commit and fix it! Similarly, if something that was expected to be a simple feature turned out to require general architectural changes, carve out the general changes and commit them first.