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Comment by lmilcin | Hacker News Reader

Nobody questions it is important to write clear commit messages. The issue is being nitpicky about what exact form is being used like whether to capitalize first letter or not.

When I look at the repository I am happy if I can understand the messages at all. It's challenging to get people to group changes in a logical way so that the commit makes sense. I am not going to pick on somebody because he used wrong tense or did not capitalize first word of the message if the changes are grouped logically and the commit mentions the correct ticket and purpose of the commit.

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I feel it reduces cognitive load, like proper formatting of code.

Do you enforce consistent code formatting in your codebase (using CI, maybe)? If so, why wouldn’t you do that with commits?

Because the commit messages, just like email messages, isn't part of the product. They are part of communication between developers. You could as well require people on mailing list to never top-post and always spell correctly, to reduce cognitive load. Some people actually do that, but they are pretty annoying. :)

I'm in that camp that doesn't enforce consistent styling in code or even particularly believe in the value of linting at all! ^_^

I'm pretty much just echoing what others have said, but when I look back at the things that have caused problems / mattered in a codebase, things like formatting are generally ranked an order of magnitude below everything else.

If people care, I'm happy to oblige, but it always seems like a missing the forest for the trees kind of thing.

I used to be in the camp that cared a lot about formatting, but over time realized that it's more my OCD than any practical reason.

At this point, the only reason why I like consistent code formatting rules is because they prevent bickering between people who have strong opinions on how things should be. When there's a rule, even if people don't like it, they abide by it. When there are no rules, everybody who thinks that there should be rules starts bikeshedding what they ought to be.

But as far as code quality goes, I don't think it matters much.

People absolutely do question if it is important to write clear commit messages. I've had quite a few conversations where people have said things along the lines of "why do you even care? no one ever looks at the commit meesages".

> The issue is being nitpicky about what exact form is being used like whether to capitalize first letter or not.

How many code bases have you worked with that don't bother enforcing some type of standard with spacing/usage of tabs, indentation, variable names, method names, import order etc? People don't typically view those rules/conventions as nitpicky. Why should that change with commit messages?

If that's the case, why have standards when it comes to writing code, e.g. when to use camel case? Why have styles at all for writing in a language like English that tell you how titles should be formatted? Consistent format and structure reduces cognitive load IMO, because it breeds familiarity. Also, Git itself uses the imperative mood whenever it creates a commit on your behalf. Consistency is good.

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