[TYPO3-core] Commit message nitpicking...

[Markus Klein]

Hi folks,

Obviously I was the most active "nitpicker" in the last days. Yes, I think the minimum thing we can expect from anybody is to stick to the rules.
The rules are clearly outlined in the WIKI.
I have no idea why the distinction between Fixes and Resolves has been introduced and why it has been introduced silently in the WIKI only.
Furthermore the examples in the WIKI were wrong for a long time, which were corrected by me some month ago.
I encourage everyone to read through http://wiki.typo3.org/CommitMessage_Format_%28Git%29 again and correct everything that might be unclear there.

Having clear and consistent commit messages is the first step towards quality in my eyes!

Just as a note: I almost always give a -1 by reading on such patches, but the follow-up patch with the corrected message follows about a minute later. (patch for patch)
The simple reason for this: There should be an obvious reason why a new patch version has been uploaded.

Feel free to send me a note if you think this consistency is unnecessary and I should stop nitpicking. (No problem ;-))

Kind regards
Markus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: typo3-team-core-bounces at lists.typo3.org [mailto:typo3-team-core-bounces at lists.typo3.org] On Behalf Of Ernesto Baschny
> [cron IT]
> Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 2:02 PM
> To: typo3-team-core at lists.typo3.org
> Subject: Re: [TYPO3-core] Commit message nitpicking...
> 
> Am 19.02.2012 09:17, schrieb Tolleiv Nietsch:
> 
> > looking into most change requests in Gerrit you'll see that commit
> > messages turn out to be a huge playground for our dear nitpickers.
> >
> > The defined commit message format [1] distinguishes between "Fixes",
> > "Resolves" for certain issue types and it allows "Releases" but not
> > "Branches" for the targets. It's not much but still people (even Core
> > devs) seem to run into the trap quite often and the nitpickers are
> > happy to show them.
> >
> > Therefore there are two things I need to ask here:
> >
> > 1) Nitpickers - Y U NO follow "patch for a patch" rules? [2] It's
> > soooo easy - fetch the patch, amend the commit message and push.
> >
> > 2) All other Folks - do we really need to distinguish between "Fixes"
> > and "Releases" based on the context and are we really so square headed
> > to forbid "Branches" as alias for "Releases"? Do we really want to
> > make it so easy for the nitpickers? Are there technical reasons for that?
> >
> > [1] http://wiki.typo3.org/CommitMessage_Format_(Git)
> > [2]
> > http://lists.typo3.org/pipermail/typo3-project-v4/2011-March/002115.ht
> > ml
> 
> The reason for these different keywords before the issue numbers are just their semantical differences. All tools we have (like my
> "merges to the core") do not care if it is called "Fixes" or "Resolves" (it seems in this thread "Resolves" is being confused with
> "Releases", which is a wrong keyword for be used in conjunction with an issue number).
> 
> So in general I don't care which keyword is there, our tools should just accept both as possible.
> 
> As for a "Releases" tag (I've never seen this, has this been done
> before??) it's a bit misleading to call it "Branches" as for example "4.7" is not really a branch (yet). And we should not put "Branches:
> 4.5, 4.6, master", because the master is a moving target (i.e. in a context of 4.8 development the above mentioned tag would specify
> that it doesn't apply to 4.7).
> 
> My "merges to the core" tool doesn't consider a potential "Branches" tag (yet).
> 
> I also agree with the general comments that nitpicking should be discouraged in exchange to a new corrected patchset.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ernesto