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Except for startups when commit messages are more like "asdf", "aoeu", "quick fix", or "demo" because some investor barged in and demanded a demo before they wo

by dheera 4y ago

Except for startups when commit messages are more like "asdf", "aoeu", "quick fix", or "demo" because some investor barged in and demanded a demo before they would wire funds. If ChatGPT could change that to something like "disable current limits" or "disable safety checks" or whatever that might be marginally better.

javier2 4y ago
this is just normal every day commit messages in most startups I've seen
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Startups tend to be a "do a rush job so the business won't die, worry about fixing it later" kind of a deal. I don't envy those working on original codebase after the startup is no longer racing its own runway. I've experienced messages barely better than this in products that were under no immediate threat, and let me tell you this: having to figure out why some changes were made, three years earlier, in a bunch of badly-described commits whose author already left for another job, with no old documentation hinting at the purpose of the changes - this is one of the few things in this job that make me want to shout someone's ear off.
  - javier2 4y ago
    yeah, it happens a lot in established projects as well. especially projects with very small teams.
llukas 4y ago
This indicates commit quality. Why lose this info? If you have only time to put "aoeu" into commit message would you have time to correct ChatGPT output? ;)
eternityforest 4y ago
asdf is still better than having lies sprinkled in randomly. Maybe prefixing them all with gpt: would help
- ketralnis 4y ago
  > asdf is still better than having lies sprinkled in randomly. I think this is the core of my argument, yeah. If a _reader_ needs better than they can run GPT themselves. But the _writer_ using it is worse than useless, it's actively harmful.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
A ChatGPT-generated message, pasted without editing, is purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information. This means I could just as well run it on your diff myself, if I thought it would be useful. More than that, when I do it a year or two after you made your commit, the then-current ChatGPT will likely do a much better job at summarizing the change. So perhaps it's best to leave auto-summarization to (interested) readers, and write a commit message with some actual information instead.
- dheera 4y ago
  > purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information I mean, a human brain is arguably also a purely functional transformation adding zero information.
  - ahartmetz 4y ago
    Though in this case, it has more and better quality context (i.e. input), like requirements or anything else that isn't in the model's training set.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    It's not. The diff, which is the sole input to GPT-3 here, does not carry the causal context - that is, why the change was made. Nor does it carry the broader understanding necessary to summarize the what succinctly and accurately - things like high-level design terms that mostly exist on diagrams or in issue trackers, but not in the code itself. By adding those details in a commit message, the author can add extra information. And yes, technically they could do it in comments, which would allow GPT-3 to process it. Except, I think it's highly unlikely for a coder using ChatGPT to write commit messages for them to actually author useful comments on their own. If they write any at all, they'll probably use ChatGPT (or Copilot) for that too.
    - welshwelsh 4y ago
      We could give the model access to JIRA, confluence, meeting transcripts etc. so that it has all the same contextual information as the developers.
teddyh 4y ago
Haaaaaaaaands — https://xkcd.com/1296/ https://xkcd.com/1296/

by dheera 4y ago

javier2 4y ago

this is just normal every day commit messages in most startups I've seen

TeMPOraL 4y ago
Startups tend to be a "do a rush job so the business won't die, worry about fixing it later" kind of a deal. I don't envy those working on original codebase after the startup is no longer racing its own runway. I've experienced messages barely better than this in products that were under no immediate threat, and let me tell you this: having to figure out why some changes were made, three years earlier, in a bunch of badly-described commits whose author already left for another job, with no old documentation hinting at the purpose of the changes - this is one of the few things in this job that make me want to shout someone's ear off.
- javier2 4y ago
  yeah, it happens a lot in established projects as well. especially projects with very small teams.

llukas 4y ago

This indicates commit quality. Why lose this info? If you have only time to put "aoeu" into commit message would you have time to correct ChatGPT output? ;)

eternityforest 4y ago

asdf is still better than having lies sprinkled in randomly. Maybe prefixing them all with gpt: would help

ketralnis 4y ago
> asdf is still better than having lies sprinkled in randomly. I think this is the core of my argument, yeah. If a _reader_ needs better than they can run GPT themselves. But the _writer_ using it is worse than useless, it's actively harmful.

TeMPOraL 4y ago

A ChatGPT-generated message, pasted without editing, is purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information. This means I could just as well run it on your diff myself, if I thought it would be useful. More than that, when I do it a year or two after you made your commit, the then-current ChatGPT will likely do a much better job at summarizing the change. So perhaps it's best to leave auto-summarization to (interested) readers, and write a commit message with some actual information instead.

dheera 4y ago
> purely functional transformation of the code, adding zero information I mean, a human brain is arguably also a purely functional transformation adding zero information.
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  Though in this case, it has more and better quality context (i.e. input), like requirements or anything else that isn't in the model's training set.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  It's not. The diff, which is the sole input to GPT-3 here, does not carry the causal context - that is, why the change was made. Nor does it carry the broader understanding necessary to summarize the what succinctly and accurately - things like high-level design terms that mostly exist on diagrams or in issue trackers, but not in the code itself. By adding those details in a commit message, the author can add extra information. And yes, technically they could do it in comments, which would allow GPT-3 to process it. Except, I think it's highly unlikely for a coder using ChatGPT to write commit messages for them to actually author useful comments on their own. If they write any at all, they'll probably use ChatGPT (or Copilot) for that too.
  - welshwelsh 4y ago
    We could give the model access to JIRA, confluence, meeting transcripts etc. so that it has all the same contextual information as the developers.

teddyh 4y ago

Haaaaaaaaands — https://xkcd.com/1296/ https://xkcd.com/1296/