Re: Template for commit messages

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 03:52:25PM +0100, Tom Lane wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 8:04 AM, Tomas Vondra
> > <tomas(dot)vondra(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
> >> Why can't we do both? That is, have a free-form text with the nuances, and
> >> then Reviewed-By listing the main reviewers? The first one is for humans,
> >> the other one for automated tools.
>
> > I'm not objecting to or endorsing any specific proposal, just asking
> > what we want to do about this. I think the trick if we do it that way
> > will be to avoid having it seem like too much duplication, but there
> > may be a way to manage that.
>
> FWIW, I'm a bit suspicious of the idea that we need to make the commit
> messages automated-tool-friendly. What tools are there that would need
> to extract this info, and would we trust them if they didn't understand
> "nuances"?
>
> I'm on board with Bruce's template as being a checklist of points to be
> sure to cover when composing a commit message. I'm not sure we need
> fixed-format rules.

I've been asking for them for years so I can spend my time on the
PostgreSQL Weekly News more efficiently. Maybe it's more efficient
for me to do this arranging than for each committer to do it. I'd
like to imagine that committers are in a better position than I to
summarize their work.

Whatever we decide on here, I'd really appreciate it if every patch
sent to the list came with a sentence describing what that version of
it does, as scope drift frequently makes Subject: lines completely
wrong.

While I'm at it, I'd like to thank Andres Freund, Peter Geoghegan, and
Robert Haas in particular for making a habit of writing detailed
summaries and splitting patches into logical chunks. All errors in
the PostgreSQL Weekly News are mine, but a little organization like
theirs would go a very long way, and not just for me.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
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