Re: [PATCH] merge: add instructions to the commit message when editing

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Thomas Rast [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

The sentence about justification is one of the few things about
standard git that are not agnostic to the workflow that the user
chose.

We try to be agnostic at plumbing level, but I do not think we ever made
such a promise at the Porcelain level like "git merge". On the contrary,
we try to encourage good workflows by coding behaviours to support BCP to
Porcelain commands.  Am I misreading what you were trying to say here?

Oh, I was just trying to preempt a possible argument why this is wrong.
Maybe I was a bit over-eager in doing so ;-)

quoted

+static const char merge_editor_comment[] =
+N_("Please enter the commit message for your merge commit.  You should\n"
+"justify it especially if it merges an updated upstream into a topic\n"
+"branch.\n"
+"\n"
+"Lines starting with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts\n"
+"the commit.\n");

I am tempted to rewrite this a bit, perhaps something like ...

  Please enter the commit message for your merge commit.  Explain
  why the merge is necessary, especially if it merges an updated
  upstream into a topic branch.

... because people who need to be told to "justify it" would probably be
helped by a more explicit "explain _why_ it is needed".

Why not.  The "explain..." might be construed as a bit too coercive, but
I cannot come up with a way to defuse it (well, except again tacking on
"you should") and yours is certainly much clearer.

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch