Every time I commit I have to look through
git diff, figure out what the hell I actually did, come up with something intelligent to say about jt, possibly split the commit into multiple commits if I changed multiple things, do some shuffling withgit resetandgit add…For some reason all my personal projects are all like 4K SLoC with 50 total commits, all of which include apologies for not doing more smaller commits
There’s a bigger issue than your commit message if you don’t even know what you just coded and are committing.
You see, sometimes I code something, go to bed before finishing it, come back, decide not to commit because then I’d have to think of a commit message and I just want to code, start working on an unrelated feature, do that for a couple days, get distracted by life stuff and put the project down for a few weeks/months, rinse and repeat, and then I finally get around to writing a commit message because I’m about to start a huge change and I want a restore point and I’m like. Okay, it’s been like 3 months since my last commit, I’m pretty sure my code can now do something it couldn’t 3 months ago but come on, I can’t even remember what I had for lunch last Thursday
I’m well aware this is terrible practice but I don’t know how to stop doing it
Commit more often. Maybe work in a different feature branch, and don’t be afraid to commit your half-working crappy code. If it’s a personal project/fork, it’s totally acceptable to commit often with bad commit names and small unfinished changes: you can always amend/squash the commits later. That’s how I tend to work: create a new branch, work on the feature, rebase and merge (fast forward, no merge commit). Also, maybe don’t jump around working on random features :P
psst, git add -p
Remind me what -p does.
Edit: never mind - I see it mentioned below.
Patch add - it shows you particular changes you made, and you choose whether or not to include them in the commit. (You can then use
git stash -kto stash only the changes you did not add, so you can test before you commit.)
Just use What The Commit.
You can also create a git alias:
git config --global alias.yolo ‘!git add -A && git commit -m “$(curl --silent --fail https://whatthecommit.com/index.txt)”’
Now you can just type ‘git yolo’ to create a commit!
“Make Sure You Are Square With Your God Before Trying To Merge This”
I’m using Copilot for it right now. It works on half of the cases.
Oh god I feel so called out. I wish I paid more attention to my commit messages but I’m usually too busy fixing the directory structure and refactoring. Sigh.
My company collapses into a single commit at merge so idgaf what the commit message is anymore. Though I would prefer not collapsing them.
Psst,
git add -pWhat does this?
“patch mode” - Patch mode allows you to stage parts of a changed file, instead of the entire file. This allows you to make concise, well-crafted commits that make for an easier to read history.
Highly recommend throwing
--patchon any git commands you’re used to using. You will have the prettiest, most atomic fkn commit, I’m serious people will love you for it.I mean many people won’t care, but the quality folk will notice and approve.
Or just use a good IDE that makes doing atomic commits pretty natural.
We make a singular commit per feature.
I always find this hard to follow personally.
“Fix”
“Bits were fiddled, possibly in the right way”
‘Change’ if I’m feeling particularly chaotic.
git commit -m $(date)
reminds me of what youtube was doing to firefox users for awhile.
git commit -m “break codec sync if UA = firefox/gecko”
