[gits] Git commit formatting and git mail about public repositories. Was [Re: git commit: [emulab-dreading] branch master updated (7024b54)]

[eeide at cs.utah.edu (Eric Eide)]

	Dan> I try to commit on a regular basis.
	Dan> 1) If I've just finished a change and its working.
	Dan> 2) If I'm about to try something new and want to be able to fall back
	Dan> to a earlier state. There maybe many types of #2 between #1s.
	Dan> 
	Dan> I try make my change sets as independent as possible checking in

This is all great.

	Dan> So a question arises for me: Why send mail about git pushes into
	Dan> 'public' repositories, specially when one is not collaborating
	Dan> with anyone else using that 'public' repository?

This is sort of an Emulab-specific question, since it relates to the particular
system that we set up for managing changes to Emulab.

My general answer is that emails from personal-public repos are useful for
letting other Emulab hackers know what people are working on in general and
to give people a "preview" of what will eventually be coming to one of the
central repositories.  (And of course, they are useful for direct
collaboration, too, as you mention.)

You might call this "situational awareness."  Situational awareness is a good
thing!

	Dan> Second thought, when 'pushing/rebasing' my public repository to
	Dan> central is it possible to bundle all the separate commit message
	Dan> into one, with a summary line and the individual commit messages
	Dan> for the detailed documentation. Is this where a branch comes into
	Dan> play?

"git rebase -i" is useful for squashing a bunch of commits into one, and it can
be told to concatenate the log messages of the squashed commits.  (Check out
the "squash" command; compare this to the "fixup" command.)

You don't need a topic branch in order to squash a bunch of commits, but a
topic branch maybe/probably makes your life easier for this (and for rebasing).

Eric.

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Eric Eide <eeide at cs.utah.edu>  .         University of Utah School of Computing
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