Do you have experience with properly documenting and including clear commit messages for your code?
Good documentation is a cornerstone of successful development projects
When I first began committing code and writing README files, nobody raised any complaints. I believed I was doing it correctly until I started an internship and had to collaborate with other developers. That's when my mentor pointed out that my commits were too basic and lacked meaningful context. This feedback prompted me to research effective code documentation and commit message writing.
Have I improved? Yes, I have (self-evaluation). I now recognize that commit messages are crucial, not only for my benefit but also for the understanding of other developers.
Documentation plays a critical role in various aspects of life, not just in software development. For instance, in a hospital, it's essential to have proper documentation of a patient's well-being. This ensures that other healthcare providers can understand the patient's condition and needs.
Similarly, in programming, when you deploy your code, it's crucial to provide clear explanations of what your code does. This helps other developers understand the purpose and functionality of the codebase or application. Simply deploying to GitHub without proper context can lead to confusion and inefficiencies in collaboration.
What are the git messages?
A git commit message is a short text that identifies the context of the work. A commit message should be concise, clear and descriptive
The Commit type can include the following:
feat: A new feature is introduced with the changes
fix: a bug fix has occurred
chore: changes that do not relate to a fix or feature and don't modify src or test files (for example, updating dependencies)
refactor: refactored code that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
docs: updates to documentation such as the README or other markdown files
style: changes that do not affect the meaning of the code, likely related to code formatting such as white space, missing semicolons, and so on.
test: including new or correcting previous tests
perf: performance improvements
ci: continuous integration related
build: changes that affect the build system or external dependencies
revert: reverts a previous commit
example
git commit -m "feat: add a toggle theme at the navigation"
In conclusion, always include a commit message when deploying to GitHub. It aids in your understanding of what you did, especially if you revisit your code after some time, and it also provides valuable context for other developers who may be working with the code.
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Thank you for reading 💖