Encouraging useful commit messages WAS Re: svn commit: r606277

[Daniel John Debrunner <dj...@apache.org>]

abrown@apache.org wrote:
> Author: abrown
> Date: Fri Dec 21 11:21:53 2007
> New Revision: 606277
> 
> URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?rev=606277&view=rev
> Log:
> DERBY-3253: Port changes to 10.3.

Would it be possible to have a more useful commit message that gives 
some indication of the change. It makes svn log much more readable by 
itself, without having to lookup information in the jira system.

This helps when looking for changes that might have broken a test, a 
useful commit message can help in determining if change is likely to 
have broken a specific area or not.

Dan.

Re: Encouraging useful commit messages WAS Re: svn commit: r606277

[Andrew McIntyre <mc...@gmail.com>]

On Dec 21, 2007 11:53 AM, Daniel John Debrunner <dj...@apache.org> wrote:
> abrown@apache.org wrote:
> > Author: abrown
> > Date: Fri Dec 21 11:21:53 2007
> > New Revision: 606277
> >
> > URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?rev=606277&view=rev
> > Log:
> > DERBY-3253: Port changes to 10.3.
>
> Would it be possible to have a more useful commit message that gives
> some indication of the change. It makes svn log much more readable by
> itself, without having to lookup information in the jira system.
>
> This helps when looking for changes that might have broken a test, a
> useful commit message can help in determining if change is likely to
> have broken a specific area or not.

Let me add to this that when merging changes between branches, it is a
good idea to include the specific revisions that you merged, and
whether or not additional changes were necessary. This helps others
when porting to another branch further back and helps to prevents
duplicate merges by keeping a list of merged revisions in the history
that a person can check against.

andrew