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I agree with the author, the last commit to touch a file or directory isn't very useful. A single white space change will replace the message for a large refact

I agree with the author, the last commit to touch a file or directory isn't very useful. A single white space change will replace the message for a large refactor. The commit message is a proxy for freshness, but only if you are familiar with the commit log. It is a proxy for related changes, because a commit will update the details for many files. 'Freshness' indicated by color that is more washed out the older the file achieves the first use case. A sparkline showing changes over time would indicate recent changes, hot files, related changes, and freshness.

bpye 8y ago
This really depends on how disciplined your commits are. Yes a refactor makes it useless but really, in my opinion, a whitespace only change should be a seperate commit. Additionally a commit should be a group of changes that make sense together, certainly not two unrelated features. I think this is why I tend to find the last commit a pretty valuable field.
- fwip 8y ago
  If the whitespace only change comes after the refactor, then the last commit message is "fix whitespace."
- snowe2010 8y ago
  > in my opinion, a whitespace only change should be a seperate commit yeah and now your 'most recent commit' is 'fix whitespace' instead of whatever your relevant commit message is. No matter how disciplined your colleagues are, commit messages describe what was done and sometimes what was done is just cleanup or refactoring.
koffiezet 8y ago
I don't - I use this quite a lot in the current view to see how active they still are. The commit log is maybe nicer - but as an external user of something hosted on GitHub - that level of detail is actually not that interesting. A "last updated" would be more useful. If you would get the commit/pull req/issue list in your default view when you have commit rights on - or have been contributing to a repo, sure, seeing the commit/pull req/issue log could be an interesting information stream in that situation. But then lastly - the other statistics? It just creates an information overload. I prefer a cleaner look with a single focussed view.

bpye 8y ago

This really depends on how disciplined your commits are. Yes a refactor makes it useless but really, in my opinion, a whitespace only change should be a seperate commit. Additionally a commit should be a group of changes that make sense together, certainly not two unrelated features. I think this is why I tend to find the last commit a pretty valuable field.

fwip 8y ago
If the whitespace only change comes after the refactor, then the last commit message is "fix whitespace."
snowe2010 8y ago
> in my opinion, a whitespace only change should be a seperate commit yeah and now your 'most recent commit' is 'fix whitespace' instead of whatever your relevant commit message is. No matter how disciplined your colleagues are, commit messages describe what was done and sometimes what was done is just cleanup or refactoring.

koffiezet 8y ago

I don't - I use this quite a lot in the current view to see how active they still are. The commit log is maybe nicer - but as an external user of something hosted on GitHub - that level of detail is actually not that interesting. A "last updated" would be more useful. If you would get the commit/pull req/issue list in your default view when you have commit rights on - or have been contributing to a repo, sure, seeing the commit/pull req/issue log could be an interesting information stream in that situation. But then lastly - the other statistics? It just creates an information overload. I prefer a cleaner look with a single focussed view.