[webkit-dev] WebKit Transition to Git

[Ryosuke Niwa]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 3:19 PM Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro at gnome.org> wrote:
>
> Detailed descriptions are very important. I don't think function-level
> changelogs are; documenting changes in individual functions is
> generally busywork to say what you can plainly see by just looking at
> the diff.

They certainly can be quite informative. e.g.
https://trac.webkit.org/changeset/268365/webkit/trunk/Source/WebCore/ChangeLog

It's true that you can certainly split each logical step into its own
commit but that seems like more of a busy work to me. I mostly use a
Subversion checkout to do my work, and even if I'm using a Git clone,
I normally wouldn't commit anything until the whole patch is written.
e.g. I wrote the entirety of https://trac.webkit.org/r268239 and
posted in one chunk other than a few WIP patches I had posted. Having
to go back & split that into multiple commits would be a total waste
of time.

> Regarding line-by-line commit review... well, it would be nice to have,
> of course.  But I don't think it's as important as you suggest.
> Problems with commit messages are usually general problems with the
> entire commit message rather than problems with a specific line of the
> commit message.

I disagree. I often have specific commentary on specific lines of
change logs like missing function-level comments or typos, or need
some elaboration on specific details.

- R. Niwa