Subject: Re: Please stop change logs in CVS commit messages
To: David Brownlee <abs@netbsd.org>
From: David Burgess <burgess@mitre.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 07/10/2001 17:00:47
David Brownlee wrote:
> 
>         How about a suggested maxsize of commit message - if the change
>         log is more than 2K, summarise.

My personal opinion is that the if the commit message is more than a 
few lines, someone is working too hard.  I'm thinking something along
the lines of two per PR closed (or opened) and maybe a couple-ish lines
on what the change is.  The change log can be referenced in the commit
message; there shouldn't be a need to repeat it.

At the risk of repeating myself, the CVS commit message should describe
more why a change is being committed than what the change is.  I hope
no one thinks of this a "proof by belligerent assertion", it's merely
a method that I've used professionally for about a dozen years with my
customers.