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HOW TO COMMIT CHANGES TO EMACS
Most of these points are from:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-03/msg00555.html
From: Miles Bader
Subject: commit style redux
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:21:20 +0900
(0) Each commit should correspond to a single change (whether spread
over multiple files or not). Do not mix different changes in the
same commit (eg adding a feature in one file, fixing a bug in
another should be two commits, not one).
(1) Commit all changed files at once with a single log message (which
in CVS will result in an identical log message for all committed
files), not one-by-one. This is pretty easy using vc-dir now.
(2) Make the log message describe the entire changeset, perhaps
including relevant changelog entries (I often don't bother with
the latter if it's a trivial sort of change).
Many modern source-control systems vaguely distinguish the first
line of the log message to use as a short summary for abbreviated
history listing (in arch this was explicitly called the summary,
but many other systems have a similar concept). So it's nice if
you can format the log entry like:
SHORTISH ONE-LINE SUMMARY
MULTIPLE-LINE DETAILED DESCRIPTION POSSIBLY INCLUDING (OR
CONSISTING OF) CHANGELOG ENTRIES
[Even with CVS this style is useful, because web CVS browsing
interfaces often include the first N words of the log message of
the most recent commit as a short "most recent change"
description.]
(3) Don't phrase log messages assuming the filename is known, because
in non-file-oriented systems (everything modern other than CVS),
the log listing tends to be treated as global information, and the
connection with specific files is less explicit.
For instance, currently I often see log messages like "Regenerate";
for modern source-control systems with a global log, it's better to
have something like "Regenerate configure".
(4) (Added in 2014) In commit comments, and ChangeLog files, it is best
to use ways of identifying revisions that are not dependent on a
particular version control system. (At time of writing Emacs is
about to move to its fourth VCS and another move in the future is
not impossible.) An excellent way to identify commits is by
quoting their summary line. Another is with an action stamp - an
RFC3339 date followed by ! followed by the committer's email - for
example, "2014-01-16T05:43:35Z!esr@thyrsus.com". Often, "my
previous commit" will suffice.
Followup discussion:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-01/msg00897.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-02/msg00401.html
PREVIOUS GUIDELINES FOR CVS
For historical interest only, here is the old-style advice for CVS logs:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-12/msg01208.html
From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: Log messages in CVS
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:06:29 +0200
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