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Comment by raimue | Hacker News Reader

The save command also accepts the commit message on command line only instead of opening an editor.

I do not understand how people can live with only a single line for the commit message. For a new feature, I need to provide some details what is added and how it can be used. For a bugfix, a single line is rarely enough to describe the problem, what you changed, and why this change solves the problem.

Writing good commit messages is an essential part of using a version control system with a team. When trying to make the git interface easier, this should not be dumbed down. I would rather expect the tool to provide assistance with the usual format of a short subject and a body for a longer explanation.

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Most people don't really use version control, they just use version control programs because they've been told they're supposed to. They might as well be using rsync.

Most of them would benefit from learning to actually use it, but this is unfortunately niche.

I started to write longer format commit messages, and it was such a pleasure to do so and I can see that others appreciate them too, in core reviews and PRs. I also like the easy grepping capabilities.

I often go through list of recent commits and rebase them before sending PRs. That way, I save a bit of time not having to switch contexts with code and commit messages.

My team doesn't write long format commit messages and it's never been an issue. When we need to track down changes we use the corresponding mr, which includes a description as well as a link to the relevant cards.

I personally like this format more because it lets you both be "dirty" in your branch writing commits for yourself, and not have to use amends/rebasing. I can see how it would be annoying for someone that does all the digging on the terminal through git log and blame, but we all use gitlab instead.

If you ever switch from Gitlab to another git host, you’ll lose all that history though. Maybe you’re fine with that, but I wouldn’t be.

Hi, Developer Evangelist at GitLab here.

While we do not want you to leave ... :-) ... you'll have great tools to export your data from projects, for example https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/settings/import_expo...

Another way is to programmatically work with the REST API and export the needed data (https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/). This can be needed to specific backup and persistence routines for data compliance too. I personally recommend to use the Python, Ruby, etc. library bindings for easier API requests.

This won't solve the import into another tool, yet it opens a migration possibility with full access via an API.

Unrelated question but why don't more people use Gerrit instead of Gitlab or Github? To me Gerrit flow makes the most sense.

Speaking only for myself: Because Gerrit's unit of review is a single commit instead of a branch. Commits are units of change, but the unit of work and review is almost always a series of related changes. Just because the changes are individually atomic (testable, cherry-pickable, etc) doesn't mean that I want to review them that way. The typical flow is for an engineer to produce a cluster of inter-related changes that motivate and rationalize each other.

Reviewing such a chunk in Gerrit is a PITA. It breaks up the flow of discussion and encourages a myopic perspective on the work.

That's what a bug tracker is for, stories, specs, and lengthy discussion. Commit message can then be "FOO-1234, add tests." Modern tools auto link those.

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