6 ms·

Epic commit message

27 points by fexl 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
csmattryder 14y ago
Well, technically, it's not. It's just a long commit message. Nothing's really 'epic' about it, beyond being rather informative.
- milkshakes 14y ago
  ep·ic [ep-ik] adjective 1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem. 2. resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - fexl 14y ago
    I was using "epic" with a Jeff Spicoli accent, not in the classical sense. But thanks for the comments!
klibertp 14y ago
I wrote a few similar commit messages - mainly upon merges, but sometimes when commiting small, but important changes too. The result: I was ridiculed and laughed at... I even seem to remember that someone said I was "unfulfilled writer" (believe me, in my language that was much more unpleasant...). I can't help but think that majority of programmers are just illiterate and they feel threatened when someone actually has the will (as you can probably see from this post my skill isn't all that great either) to write...
- fexl 14y ago
  Yes, I could have let it slide and simply written "Fixed bug in type_open propagation in parse.c". But I sort of wanted to "punish" myself a little and force myself to write out precisely what I had done wrong in painfully explicit terms. Otherwise, as Brian Griffin said to Peter, I "wouldn't learn anything." ;)
- masklinn 14y ago
  > The result: I was ridiculed and laughed at... Well fuck these people, I for one am sick and tired of looking for why a code section was changed in ways I don't understand in the log or blame and getting "changed stuff" back. I'd much rather people explained clearly (and verbosely if needed) what the bloody hell they're committing this change for.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Maybe it would help to put design docs somewhere more accessible than buried in the commit log.
benjaminwootton 14y ago
It would be good if you could categorise your source code comments somehow and have your IDE help manage them. By default you would browse code with important summary comments visible, but if you're interested in any one area, you could then drill down into much more detailed and text dense comments right within your editor to read about design decisions and the bigger picture in plain English. Comments could be further categorised into, say, business logic related comments or those related to design patterns, or page flow or test cases or internationalization or whatever, giving you more options to learn about the code and drill into the specific area you care about. This readily accessible living documentation would be a much better way of learning about code bases in plain English without consulting out-of-date technical specs.
- fexl 14y ago
  I like what you're hinting at here. In my case, the "IDE" is vim running in a terminal window, with another terminal window to the right where I run git, grep, and tests. Nevertheless, even in this austere environment I could imagine a vim plugin which would let me wrap some sort of bracketed enclosures around piece of text, possibly nested, with the ability to expand and contract with the press of single key. Without even searching, I'll estimate the probability of that already existing as 85%. Problem is, anyone viewing the code in a normal text display, e.g. on github or plain text editor, would see all the excruciating detail, all the time. But it's an interesting idea. Perhaps instead of the expand/collapse, I could just use links. Vim users should note that when you're sitting on a word, if you type "gf" it will Go to that File (i.e. open it up right there), and you can use "o" and "i" the way you use "Back" and "Forward" in a browser.
  - fexl 14y ago
    Sorry, I meant you can use "Ctrl-o" and "Ctrl-i" that way.
- ovi256 14y ago
  I think you are going towards Knuth's literate programming. Not a bad approach.
- 14y ago
lylejohnson 14y ago
If I had to choose, I'd pick this commit message over "bug fixes" or other similarly uninformative commit messages.
- masklinn 14y ago
  Yep. Especially "bug fixes" which don't actually fix bugs, and "improvements" which touch half the codebase for about 15 different reasons none of which is explained.
- JoachimSchipper 14y ago
  Actually, I think this is a really good commit message, period. Sure, you don't want to detail every change to this extent, but important architectural fixes are fine. (That said, speculating about the future in a medium where you don't necessarily record "well, that didn't work" and cannot go back to add something may not be optimal.)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- fexl 14y ago
  I crafted the first line deliberately to be a summary. "Major improvement in the propagation of type_open in parse.c." How is that not a summary? Where did I go wrong? [Edit: Ironically, he might have overlooked the first line of the commit message because it is highlighted in bold.]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jasonkostempski 14y ago
Would have been hilarious if at the end of all that we see a single line change in the diff and it's just a deletion.
sjtgraham 14y ago
It's a little bit cheesy to submit something that you did yourself and describe it as epic (no snark intended). Source: contact in whois for domain listed in OP's profile is the same as the author of commit in git log. Related: My favourite pull request ever http://github.com/ericf/yui3-gallery/pull/21 http://github.com/ericf/yui3-gallery/pull/21
- Narretz 14y ago
  The submitter name is also the github repo's name ...
- fexl 14y ago
  Yeah, I didn't intend "epic" in the sense of Homeric greatness ... I just meant like a giant tome.
ck2 14y ago
I feel like I've seen this recently on HN Eh, cannot find it - I guess we just talk a lot about commit messages. http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=commit+messages&sortby=points+desc http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=commit+mess... https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+commit+messages&tbo=1&prmdo=1&gbv=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+commi... Maybe it was this one, but I swear it was more recent: http://andrewvos.com/2011/02/21/amount-of-profanity-in-git-commit-messages-per-programming-language/ http://andrewvos.com/2011/02/21/amount-of-profanity-in-git-c... http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-expressions-emotions-github-commit-messages/ http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-expressions-emotions-gi...
onetwothreefour 14y ago
This is called: "programming".

27 points by fexl 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Well, technically, it's not. It's just a long commit message. Nothing's really 'epic' about it, beyond being rather informative.

milkshakes 14y ago
ep·ic [ep-ik] adjective 1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem. 2. resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- fexl 14y ago
  I was using "epic" with a Jeff Spicoli accent, not in the classical sense. But thanks for the comments!

klibertp 14y ago

I wrote a few similar commit messages - mainly upon merges, but sometimes when commiting small, but important changes too. The result: I was ridiculed and laughed at... I even seem to remember that someone said I was "unfulfilled writer" (believe me, in my language that was much more unpleasant...). I can't help but think that majority of programmers are just illiterate and they feel threatened when someone actually has the will (as you can probably see from this post my skill isn't all that great either) to write...

fexl 14y ago
Yes, I could have let it slide and simply written "Fixed bug in type_open propagation in parse.c". But I sort of wanted to "punish" myself a little and force myself to write out precisely what I had done wrong in painfully explicit terms. Otherwise, as Brian Griffin said to Peter, I "wouldn't learn anything." ;)
masklinn 14y ago
> The result: I was ridiculed and laughed at... Well fuck these people, I for one am sick and tired of looking for why a code section was changed in ways I don't understand in the log or blame and getting "changed stuff" back. I'd much rather people explained clearly (and verbosely if needed) what the bloody hell they're committing this change for.
Evbn 14y ago
Maybe it would help to put design docs somewhere more accessible than buried in the commit log.

benjaminwootton 14y ago

It would be good if you could categorise your source code comments somehow and have your IDE help manage them. By default you would browse code with important summary comments visible, but if you're interested in any one area, you could then drill down into much more detailed and text dense comments right within your editor to read about design decisions and the bigger picture in plain English. Comments could be further categorised into, say, business logic related comments or those related to design patterns, or page flow or test cases or internationalization or whatever, giving you more options to learn about the code and drill into the specific area you care about. This readily accessible living documentation would be a much better way of learning about code bases in plain English without consulting out-of-date technical specs.

fexl 14y ago
I like what you're hinting at here. In my case, the "IDE" is vim running in a terminal window, with another terminal window to the right where I run git, grep, and tests. Nevertheless, even in this austere environment I could imagine a vim plugin which would let me wrap some sort of bracketed enclosures around piece of text, possibly nested, with the ability to expand and contract with the press of single key. Without even searching, I'll estimate the probability of that already existing as 85%. Problem is, anyone viewing the code in a normal text display, e.g. on github or plain text editor, would see all the excruciating detail, all the time. But it's an interesting idea. Perhaps instead of the expand/collapse, I could just use links. Vim users should note that when you're sitting on a word, if you type "gf" it will Go to that File (i.e. open it up right there), and you can use "o" and "i" the way you use "Back" and "Forward" in a browser.
- fexl 14y ago
  Sorry, I meant you can use "Ctrl-o" and "Ctrl-i" that way.
ovi256 14y ago
I think you are going towards Knuth's literate programming. Not a bad approach.
14y ago

lylejohnson 14y ago

If I had to choose, I'd pick this commit message over "bug fixes" or other similarly uninformative commit messages.

masklinn 14y ago
Yep. Especially "bug fixes" which don't actually fix bugs, and "improvements" which touch half the codebase for about 15 different reasons none of which is explained.
JoachimSchipper 14y ago
Actually, I think this is a really good commit message, period. Sure, you don't want to detail every change to this extent, but important architectural fixes are fine. (That said, speculating about the future in a medium where you don't necessarily record "well, that didn't work" and cannot go back to add something may not be optimal.)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

fexl 14y ago
I crafted the first line deliberately to be a summary. "Major improvement in the propagation of type_open in parse.c." How is that not a summary? Where did I go wrong? [Edit: Ironically, he might have overlooked the first line of the commit message because it is highlighted in bold.]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

jasonkostempski 14y ago

Would have been hilarious if at the end of all that we see a single line change in the diff and it's just a deletion.

sjtgraham 14y ago

It's a little bit cheesy to submit something that you did yourself and describe it as epic (no snark intended). Source: contact in whois for domain listed in OP's profile is the same as the author of commit in git log. Related: My favourite pull request ever http://github.com/ericf/yui3-gallery/pull/21 http://github.com/ericf/yui3-gallery/pull/21

Narretz 14y ago
The submitter name is also the github repo's name ...
fexl 14y ago
Yeah, I didn't intend "epic" in the sense of Homeric greatness ... I just meant like a giant tome.

ck2 14y ago

I feel like I've seen this recently on HN Eh, cannot find it - I guess we just talk a lot about commit messages. http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=commit+messages&sortby=points+desc http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=commit+mess... https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+commit+messages&tbo=1&prmdo=1&gbv=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+commi... Maybe it was this one, but I swear it was more recent: http://andrewvos.com/2011/02/21/amount-of-profanity-in-git-commit-messages-per-programming-language/ http://andrewvos.com/2011/02/21/amount-of-profanity-in-git-c... http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-expressions-emotions-github-commit-messages/ http://geeksta.net/geeklog/exploring-expressions-emotions-gi...

onetwothreefour 14y ago

This is called: "programming".