Re: git bikeshedding (Re: triggers in dpkg, and dpkg maintenance)
On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Mon February 25 2008 9:31:15 am Otavio Salvador wrote:
> > Right. Well said.
> >
> > This however doesn't changes the value of logical changes. I doubt
> > git.git people would accept patches like:
> >
> > "Now it compiles again"
> > "Ouch! Syntax error"
> > "First try to get it done"
> > ...
> >
> > It's much nicer to have something like:
> >
> > "Implements the basis for feature 'foo'"
> > "Changes code to use new feature 'foo'"
> >
> > and avoid all the messy commits done in the way.
>
> Why?
>
> I would rather have the original history. After all, isn't that what version
> control is for? Preserving history?
No!
Version control is for enhanced traceability of changes, to let one revert
easily to previous working states of something, to aid debugging, to ease
team work and further development, to (when possible) follow the flow of the
code changes in the past, and to keep a lot of useful (when the developer
does his job right) metadata along with the changes (i.e. the changelog).
Preserving history is part of it, but not the objective. Sometimes you just
have to plain clean up the mess, so as to be able to see anything of value
through it.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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