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Many of us do that, and it's not just a new developer thing. Git actually enables this, because you get to pick and choose what to add to the index (`git add`

Many of us do that, and it's not just a new developer thing. Git actually enables this, because you get to pick and choose what to add to the index (`git add`) before committing. So that little tweak you made in the unrelated function? -- no problem, just `git add` that later, and commit it under a different message. Not all SCM tools give you that kind of flexibility. On the other hand, there's a diminishing return to placing every tiny change into a separate commit. Commit messages like "Fixed multiple small things" might make some people clutch their pearls, but sometimes you just need to get shit done and move on to solving bigger problems. My suggestion is to consider breaking your commit into two: one for "fixed this big issue that everyone cares about", and one for "a bunch of tiny cleanup stuff that I happened to notice." (Maybe call that second one "refactoring" -- it will go over better with your audience.)

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> Git actually enables this, because you get to pick and choose what to add to the index (`git add`) before committing. That assumes the changes are in separate files though, right? I know you can do use the "-i" flag, but it's fairly labor intensive.
- gmfawcett 6y ago
  That kind of depends on your tooling. e.g., I use Magit (an Emacs front-end for git) which makes interactive mode really, really easy. (But easy or not, other version control systems such as Subversion don't offer the feature at all. We kind of take Git for granted these days, but it wasn't always like that.)
- foldr 6y ago
  A lighter weight option is the --patch flag to 'git add' and 'git commit'.
- account42 6y ago
  Personally I have gotten used to using `git commit --patch` for everything (even if I only have one change) just as a convenient way of reviewing the changes I am about to commit. With that, only committing part of the changes is no additional effort.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> Git actually enables this, because you get to pick and choose what to add to the index (`git add`) before committing. That assumes the changes are in separate files though, right? I know you can do use the "-i" flag, but it's fairly labor intensive.

gmfawcett 6y ago
That kind of depends on your tooling. e.g., I use Magit (an Emacs front-end for git) which makes interactive mode really, really easy. (But easy or not, other version control systems such as Subversion don't offer the feature at all. We kind of take Git for granted these days, but it wasn't always like that.)
foldr 6y ago
A lighter weight option is the --patch flag to 'git add' and 'git commit'.
account42 6y ago
Personally I have gotten used to using `git commit --patch` for everything (even if I only have one change) just as a convenient way of reviewing the changes I am about to commit. With that, only committing part of the changes is no additional effort.