I often use the "Show annotations" functions when working with code bases. Often the commit message holds the information that is necessary to understand why something was done the way it was. I see good commit messages in the same league as good comments: I'm not interested in comments, that just repeat what is obvious, but that give the code some meaning/context (explain the why). In the same sense good commit message give context (summary of the change) and explain why the change was done.
I have yet to see an instance where I took the time to wander through several issue reports, even if they are referenced. Switching to the issue tracker takes time and often issue texts don't help or the real explanation is buried in one of the uncounted number of comments. Consider the current situation: Oracle could shutdown the bugzilla instance of netbeans right now. If the commit messages are meaningfull and explain the main reasoning, history could be reconstructed from my mercurial clone (or the git conversion of that). The commit history in a DVCS is by definition a good place to give context information. Don't take this wrong: I appreciate your work and also the stamina to see this through. I will keep being strict about these things. I have seen code bases, where commits looked like shit and the earlier a contributer learns about good commits, the better for him/her and the project and the commiter. [ Full content available at: https://github.com/apache/incubator-netbeans/pull/3 ] This message was relayed via gitbox.apache.org for [email protected]
