On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 08:03:46PM +0100, Daniel Näslund wrote:
> New log message which is ridiciously long for such a small change.
No, your new log message is much better! It's not ridiculous.
The basic algorithm for writing good log messages is:
1) Write the log message.
2) Think about *why* you are making the change.
3) Look for the answer to this question in the log message
you've just written. If it is not there, go to step 1.
4) You're done.
The rest is partly intuition and partly practice.
You're almost right saying that really good log messages are short.
But it's not shortness that makes a log message good, but conciseness
(i.e. high information density).
> Feedback on it is welcome:
>
> [[[
> For determining fuzz we have an algorithm that should only check for
> trailing and leading context. Add a small regression test to existing
> testcase. At the same time fix small typo.
So this is better than what was there before (there was nothing before :)
If you make the second sentence refer to things mentioned in the first
one, it's even clearer what the regression test is for.
You can also easily say what kind of typo you've fixed:
For determining fuzz we have an algorithm that should only check for
trailing and leading context. Make an existing existing test case verify
that this property of the algorithm holds. At the same time fix an
indentation error.
And you can even merge the above text into this part of your
log message:
>
> * subversion/tests/cmdline/patch_tests.py
> (patch_with_fuzz): Add context in the middle of one of the fuzzy
> hunks.
because that function is the only scope of all your changes.
Which also shortens the log message a bit because now you can use the
pronoun 'this' to refer to the existing test case.
I'm also doing s/At the same time/Also/ because it provides the same
information but is shorter:
* subversion/tests/cmdline/patch_tests.py
(patch_with_fuzz): For determining fuzz we have an algorithm that
should only check for trailing and leading context. Make this test
verify that this property of the algorithm holds by adding context
in the middle of one of the hunks. Also fix an indentation error.
What do you think?
Stefan
Received on 2010-02-05 20:41:41 CET