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Comment by scoot | Hacker News Reader

Conversely I hate these with abundance. If you feel that working on your project is a chore, why are you still working on it?

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It doesn't literally mean chore. It means a code change that you do regularly but is not major, and usually doesn't require much work (update dependencies being a good example).

> Chore: A routine or minor duty or task

Rather than

> Chore: An unpleasant or burdensome task

> It means a code change that you do regularly but is not major

So "update". Attaching emotionally charged words like "chore" does nobody any favors, and in fact has negative consequences.

> chore. noun. a routine task, especially a household one.

What's emotionally charged about this? It seems neutral to me.

It sounds like you have attached negativity to a relatively harmless word.

Let's just say that one of us is speaking English, and the other thinks that they are.

Let’s just say your understanding of the nuance of English is lacking, and you need to upgrade your knowledge.

Updating dependencies can be a major change. It can also be a security fix.

Marking it as a simple chore sounds like the impact has not been fully analyzed.

I understand the practice and if done meticulously by all contributors, it should at least signal a well organized project but most of the time, it just shovels your entire commit log as a release notes. It's OK to have it, but I much prefer projects that takes time to summarize the impacts to their users.

I don’t particularly enjoy cleaning my house but I love the aftermath.

Same with bumping versions on dependencies. If I didn’t have to do it I’d love to just get the new features in a non-breaking way. But I can’t, so I do, and it’s a chore.

Interesting viewpoint, thanks for sharing it. I disagree, but at some point it becomes a personal perspective, so ultimately a point of philosophy.

The example using chore is a part of the conventional commit types to mean this commit is less significant. I often use it for things like

chore: resolve a merge conflict

chore: fix code formatting

chore: update dependency type definitions library

Each of these things is nice to have tracked as their own commit so they don’t show up in other more impactful or isolated commits. They don’t add a lot to the code but are rather little house keeping actions that help keep a codebase clean and up to date.

> chore: resolve a merge conflict

This should never be a standalone commit! A merge conflict is solved by the merge commit, and if you were to override the automatic commit message, this seems like a very information-poor text to replace it with.

Most people don't have the luxury of picking and choosing exactly what they work on. I don't WANT to work on keeping some legacy tooling from falling apart, and I would consider maintaining it a chore. That doesn't mean that it can just be abandoned though, so my boss will tell me (or someone else) to go work on it when needed and that's a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to happen in a workplace.

Are you being serious?

Yes. Are you?

Yup, you should re-evaluate. There are a jillion reasons to do things that are chores. The word chore should not be implicitly perceived as a negative thing.

Do I want to clean my house? Yes. Is it still a chore? Do some thinking for yourself.

I honestly have no idea what the heck you are talking about; hence my comment. Do you seriously perceive any chores as not worth doing? That sounds unhealthy.

> There are a jillion reasons to do things that are chores.

> Do I want to clean my house? Yes. Is it still a chore?

> Do you seriously perceive any chores as not worth doing?

None of these are relevant as to whether 'chore' has negative connotations.

It clearly does to me and I'm baffled at the opposition. Do I want to clean my house? No of course not, and you don't either. If your house cleaned itself automatically would you still wish to do it? No, you do it because you need to, not because you want to.

Just about every dictionary definition mentions chores as at least possibly considered negative:

> a hard or unpleasant task: Solving the problem was quite a chore.

([1])

> A chore is a task that you must do but that you find unpleasant or boring.

> She sees exercise primarily as an unavoidable chore.

> Making pasta by hand with a rolling pin can be a real chore.

([2])

An entire article that wouldn't exist if chores were fun activities: [3].

> “Chore” can have a negative connotation and feel like a burden to a child.

[1]: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chore

[2]: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chore

[3]: https://www.nspt4kids.com/parenting/take-the-chore-out-of-do...

I only got a few sentences into this but I can assure you that I love cleaning my house, and performing various other chores. Work related and otherwise.

If I didn’t do them, my life would be worse than if I didn’t! It’s pretty easy stuff! Embrace the chore, clean up after yourself! It’s worth doing.

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