Alexander wrote:
> I think you would be much better off if you just make a separate
> commit after every change you wish to record, and do that right after
> the change. This way you will not need to remember the reasons, simply
> type them and let Subversion do it.
I actually deleted text from my post that acknowledged this point, but
also that said why it's not always ideal. Certainly one should aim to
commit after each descrete major change, however there can be sub-changes
that are required in order to achieve the main change being made, and it
might be preferable to record those all within a particluar commit, not
least because making the commits breaks up and stalls the thought process
and would hamper development if were taken to the extreme. As an example,
a change might be to resolve a bug, but actually require half a dozen
different changes. If wanting to record detail about the changes and not
just say "Fix Bug xxx", then I'd prefer for those changes to be recorded
in the same revision that did say "fix bug" so that it's clearer that the
change is for the bug fix. Of course you could just make each change and
in the comment say that it's part of a fix for bug xxx, but the first
style seems neater. Furthermore, work on changes may be in a state of flux
until finalised, and I'd rather not make a change, commit it following the
guideline of commit after each change, and then start reverting or adding
more comments such as "change blah again as earlier change didn't work"
when a previous minor commit proved not to be correct.
Just as one would generally comment code as it's written rather than go
back and do so retrospecitively, a system that encourages recording of
changes in parallel with making a change would I'm sure be easier and may
give more useful log information as well as being easier to do. If one
were using an IDE then this functionality might be available there, with a
change log panel available for the file currently being edited that the
user can update at any point. However for this to be available in the VC
interface itself doesn't seem unreasonable as long as it takes no more
than one or two seconds to select a set of files files and add a log
message.
Anyway, that's just my view :) Would be interesting to be a fly on the
wall for SVN users to see what percentage do find themselves running a
diff just before a commit, or blindly entering the same inappropriate and
inaccurate message for all the files needing to be committed.
N.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@tortoisesvn.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@tortoisesvn.tigris.org
Received on Fri Feb 23 17:20:39 2007