Apache values people over process. So I am in favor of removing any “rules” regarding commit messages (except for: must put a colon after the GEODE ticket number!)
Guidelines (not rules) can be helpful. I would like developers reading our commit message guidelines <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/GEODE/Commit+Message+Format> to be inspired to "tell the story of your work”, not waste 10 minutes manually reflowing a paragraph because one added word made the first line too long to cat to lp. I think adding a few examples of well-written commit messages to our guidelines would be the best use of that wiki page. -Owen > > On Oct 8, 2019, at 7:54 AM, Juan José Ramos <jra...@pivotal.io> wrote: > > Hello Alberto, > > It might help to add the reminder to the PR template but, honestly, I don't > think many people is actually paying much attention to that... in fact I > recall another email thread from some time ago discussing getting rid of > the template altogether :-/. > Cheers. > > On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 11:58 AM Alberto Bustamante Reyes > <alberto.bustamante.re...@est.tech> wrote: > >> I think its a good idea to have an automatic mechanism to reject commits >> that exceed a given limit. >> In the previous project I was assigned we used Gerrit instead of Github, >> and we had an automatic check to vote -1 if your commit message exceeded >> the limit. >> >> Anyway, while this is decided, a quick action could be to add a new line >> to the PR template, at least to remember it: >> >> - [ ] Is your commit message length below the limit of 50 characters? >> >> >> >> >> >> ________________________________ >> De: Juan José Ramos <jra...@pivotal.io> >> Enviado: martes, 8 de octubre de 2019 11:32 >> Para: dev@geode.apache.org <dev@geode.apache.org> >> Asunto: Re: [DISCUSS]: Commit Message Format too Short? >> >> Hello Owen, >> >> Yes, I fully agree with you. And just to be clear, I wasn't trying to >> discourage descriptive commit messages, on the contrary, we certainly must >> encourage them at all cost!!. It was decided that we should, however, try >> to keep consistency across all commits and make the subject brief, adding >> the full details within the body of the text; as described in *How to write >> a Git commit message [1], *referenced in our *Commit Message Format >> [2] *article. >> Right now we're not enforcing this rule, there are even some commits >> without the ticket number at the beginning of the commit subject :-/. >> I guess the goal of this thread is to gather some feedback and opinions >> from the community to better decide how to proceed: remove the rule, >> increase the maximum amount of characters from 50 to something else in the >> commit message subject, automatically enforce the rule altogether and >> prevent commits that don't follow it, etc. >> Best regards. >> >> [1]: https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/ >> [2]: >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/GEODE/Commit+Message+Format >> >> On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 10:07 AM Owen Nichols <onich...@pivotal.io> wrote: >> >>> I don’t care how long it is, but knowing that many tools show only the >>> first bit, it’s helpful if the message is phrased with the most important >>> words near the beginning. >>> >>> I’d much prefer to encourage rather than discourage descriptive commit >>> messages. Even better if all commit messages mentioned more about _why_ >> the >>> change is being made, not just describe the diff. >>> >>> But most important of all, NEVER forget the colon between the ticket >> number >>> and the rest. I learned that the hard way :( >>> >>> -Owen >>> >>> On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 1:52 AM Ju@N <jujora...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Hello devs, >>>> >>>> I've notice that, lately, not everybody is following the guidelines we >>> have >>>> highlighted in our Wiki under *Commit Message Format [1]*, specially >> the >>>> first requirement: *GEODE-nn: Capitalized, 50 chars or less summary. >> *As >>> an >>>> example, out of the last 33 commits in develop, only 11 follow the 50 >>> chars >>>> max rule. >>>> Even though I've always followed this "rule", I often find it hard to >>>> provide a summary of the commit in less than 50 chars, that's probably >>> the >>>> reason why other people are just ignoring this part of the guidelines?. >>>> Should we increase the maximum amount of characters from 50 to >> something >>>> else?, should we add a hard check in order to automatically enforce the >>>> rule?, should we delete the rule altogether?, thoughts?. >>>> Best regards. >>>> >>>> [1]: >>>> >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/GEODE/Commit+Message+Format >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Ju@N >>>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Juan José Ramos Cassella >> Senior Software Engineer >> Email: jra...@pivotal.io >> > > > -- > Juan José Ramos Cassella > Senior Software Engineer > Email: jra...@pivotal.io
