I always use source control for my coding changes, however some of my commit messages leave something to be desired.
I always try to write a commit message but I often think that the change themselves should be enough to indicate what I did. I also don’t need to include who made the change or the time and date and that gets included automatically.
Here are some tips I have found that may help me in the future.
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Ask yourself why you are making this change. The Who, When and What are already being covered so it is only the why that needs including in the commit message.
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If your commit breaks something or causes side affects or a new dependency this should be included in the commit message. If your commit breaks functionality, consider if you really need to commit it yet, maybe only commit once fixed?
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If your commit includes a long list of changes consider if the commit needs splitting into several commits. It is easy to only commit one or two files write a specific commit message and then commit the rest of the changes separately.
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Consider including a subject for larger commits. The following comes from the git manual.
Though not required, it’s a good idea to begin the commit message with a single short
(less than 50 character) line summarizing the change, followed by a blank line and then
a more thorough description. The text up to the first blank line in a commit message
is treated as the commit title, and that title is used throughout Git.
- If you use a subject follow the following conventions:
- Limit of 50 characters
- Start with a capital letter
- Do not end with a full stop
- Use the imperative mood i.e. write as if issuing a command
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