Git is awesome, but delivers most of its value when used beyond the utter basics.
I’ve seen some codebases that make me wonder if the developers know that
git commit -m isn’t the only way to commit changes. Some changes are
too complex to summarize in one line.
I never use -m anyway because I want to heed the commit message style
guidelines, and my editor helps me do that.
I think teams have bad reasons to avoid this.
They pay good money for a team collaboration suite and are determined to get value out of it, even though it provides no way to synchronize code and docs.
They’ve got a bad habit of using rich text formats for documentation. Most code forges support Markdown rendering, so there is little reason to use a file format inspired by paper.
I have encountered repositories with rich text documents checked in, which makes the diffs meaningless. Git works best with plain text source.
They think by hosting it in a Git repository, they make it inconvenient for others to access. If learning to browse files on a code forge is too difficult for people outside the team, run a CI job that converts and publishes the docs for general consumption.
I’ve seen some teams creating new versions of something by creating a new repository and copying files into it. If you use the same repository and create a new branch, your job is done.
Clean diffs are easier to summarize.
Never use git commit -a. Name the specific files you mean to add.
Never use shell globs to add files, as in git add wrong/*.file.
Use git commit -v to review the diff before committing. If you can’t
summarize the changes, you’re probably committing too much.
Don’t use comments to disable and preserve old code. Use git log -p to
find old code that might be useful today.
A Git repository isn’t a place where you dump stuff. It’s a way to version and distribute important information. Treating it as a sack for your disorganized bits and bobs will cause pain in the future.
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© 2024 Karl Schultheisz