A standard for commit messages

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 02/22/2012 07:16 PM, Gedare Bloom wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to reboot the conversation. Please do not bring up ChangeLog or
> $id$ or anything else that is not germane to the topic of the commit
> message.
Once more, these topics are closely tied together, whether you like this 
or not.

> Joel suggested that the commit message be something that starts with a
> simple phrase that reads like a title/headline for the commit. After
> that phrase should come additional details. The first words are what
> gets propagated to the vc list subject line, so we should make those
> words count.

Let me ask: What is the issue you are trying to resolve?

1. git format-patch?
2. git shortlog?
3. The vc-commit list subjects?
4. Implement unique "shortlogs"?

The former 2 are git internal details, which are not of actual real 
world importance.

3. is just a matter of vc-commit list implementation (Change it, let it 
parse _ChangeLogs_ (!) etc. if you don't like what it currently does.

4. would be ... well, absurd.

In a nutshell, what you are trying to do basically it to try tying 
together _ChangeLogs_ (!) and git internals. Something I consider to be 
an invalid reasoning.

> If there is a bugzilla report associated with the commit then the
> message should start with "PR #### - "; in many cases the title of the
> bug report or something similar would work fine to begin the commit
> message after the PR number.

This is inapplicable in many cases, because
a) the size of short logs is limited to carry "reasonable contents", 
i.e. it will be tedious to provide "reasonable shortlogs"
b) patches often cover many files and several topics at once.
c) there are changes, were it doesn't make sense to provide "extensive 
changelogs" - In the past, we often resorted to provide ChangeLog 
entries for these.
d) with git, we also will see git generating "cryptic" messages (e.g. 
upon merges)

> The author and date tags are automatically generated so it is
> unnecessary to state your (or anyone else's) name or the commit date
> in the commit message. If you are committing on behalf of someone else
> you should use the --author to credit the change.

This is a topic, we seem to fundamentally disagree. I would expect it 
will be unlikely will be able to find a common ground.

> Other suggestions?

- Equipe this vc-commit script with more intelligence to have it produce 
better readable mails (Compare for the former CVS-logs, they weren't 
actually better, either).
- Revert to previous practices/revive the ChangeLogs.

Ralf