I wrote already a couple of posts about version control stuff and best practices related with it. So today, what about proper commit messages?
How often did you take a look at the history of
some file/folder?? It's just the best backup system you could have and that's one of the main purposes of a VCS (forget about branching, merging etc for a while ;) ). And if you did look at your commit messages, were they meaningful?? Did they make any sense to you?? So often they don't, right? Messages like...
- method 'SomeMethodInAClass' modified
- production-build
- added some files
- fixed some bugs
- ...
...they just don't say anything, right?? You have to open some kind of comparison editor and directly look at
what actually changed.
Instead...
When looking at the 1st sample comment "method 'SomeMethodInAClass' modified", what would you think about this comment as a (more expressive) alternative:
Bugfix: changed LINQ query to return all entities EXCEPT the current one
Now assume you're currently searching for an issue you're having related to the reading of some entities...I
bet this message would jump on your eyes immediately!
So..
..the history excerpt from your VCS should
nearly be something that you could directly copy and paste as a public version history on your webpage.
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