4 ms·

I dunno…leveraging retrospect is often useful.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MrDarcy 3y ago
Extremely useful almost every time. Why wouldn’t we re-write our personal history just before merging into the main permanent history?
- interroboink 3y ago
  I'm not a proponent of it, but some people would say: including all the messy history is a more honest representation of what actually happened. By that school of thought, a repo should be recording what happened, not what you want to look like happened. I haven't found it to be terribly useful though. IME, it adds noise for future code archeologists. In very rare cases, having the messy long history can be slightly more useful for bisecting to find precisely where bugs were introduced, simply because it's more fine-grained.
  - ninkendo 3y ago
    > including all the messy history is a more honest representation of what actually happened I don’t think anyone needs to see the hundred incantations of `git commit -a -m fuckfuckfuck` I do before I make a PR. To those who say “you should make meaningful commit messages” I say “yeah that’s what you see in the single commit when I make the PR”. If you say “you should just not commit until your local work is PR worthy”, I would say you’re not using git effectively.
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    > I'm not a proponent of it, but some people would say: including all the messy history is a more honest representation of what actually happened. By that logic you should leave typos in, because, you know, it's "more honest". Or you should not edit yourself in any way, because it's "more honest". The reality is that not editing our communications, or our commit history, is a lack of respect to others, especially when that lack of editing imposes a higher cognitive burden on others (e.g., having to sift through more hay to find needles).
    - interroboink 3y ago
      I think those proponents would indeed say to include the typos. And then also include the change where you fixed the typos, and so on. I didn't mean to imply any moral or dogmatic concept of "honesty" here. It only means there is less guessing about what events actually transpired. But as you say, I agree it most often just adds noise, in my experiences.
      - cryptonector 3y ago
        > But as you say, I agree it most often just adds noise, in my experiences. But critically, that noise is a lack of respect towards others.
        interroboink 3y ago
        As with all things, context matters. It would depend on what those others want, what the team culture is, etc. I could imagine a group of these hypothetical "maximum honesty" people working together happily, and respectfully, in their way.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  > Why wouldn’t we re-write our personal history just before merging into the main permanent history? Mainly because it's more work. But it's work worth doing. It's also enjoyable.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Extremely useful almost every time. Why wouldn’t we re-write our personal history just before merging into the main permanent history?

interroboink 3y ago
I'm not a proponent of it, but some people would say: including all the messy history is a more honest representation of what actually happened. By that school of thought, a repo should be recording what happened, not what you want to look like happened. I haven't found it to be terribly useful though. IME, it adds noise for future code archeologists. In very rare cases, having the messy long history can be slightly more useful for bisecting to find precisely where bugs were introduced, simply because it's more fine-grained.
- ninkendo 3y ago
  > including all the messy history is a more honest representation of what actually happened I don’t think anyone needs to see the hundred incantations of `git commit -a -m fuckfuckfuck` I do before I make a PR. To those who say “you should make meaningful commit messages” I say “yeah that’s what you see in the single commit when I make the PR”. If you say “you should just not commit until your local work is PR worthy”, I would say you’re not using git effectively.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  > I'm not a proponent of it, but some people would say: including all the messy history is a more honest representation of what actually happened. By that logic you should leave typos in, because, you know, it's "more honest". Or you should not edit yourself in any way, because it's "more honest". The reality is that not editing our communications, or our commit history, is a lack of respect to others, especially when that lack of editing imposes a higher cognitive burden on others (e.g., having to sift through more hay to find needles).
  - interroboink 3y ago
    I think those proponents would indeed say to include the typos. And then also include the change where you fixed the typos, and so on. I didn't mean to imply any moral or dogmatic concept of "honesty" here. It only means there is less guessing about what events actually transpired. But as you say, I agree it most often just adds noise, in my experiences.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      > But as you say, I agree it most often just adds noise, in my experiences. But critically, that noise is a lack of respect towards others.
      - interroboink 3y ago
        As with all things, context matters. It would depend on what those others want, what the team culture is, etc. I could imagine a group of these hypothetical "maximum honesty" people working together happily, and respectfully, in their way.
cryptonector 3y ago
> Why wouldn’t we re-write our personal history just before merging into the main permanent history? Mainly because it's more work. But it's work worth doing. It's also enjoyable.