Linus Torvalds expressed frustration over the use of passive voice in merge commit messages, preferring active and imperative language instead.
He provided an example of how commit messages should be rewritten for clarity and consistency across the project.
Torvalds noted that while it’s not a major issue, it does add extra work when he has to rewrite messages to match his preference.
I read his message. He didn’t seem grumpy or frustrated to me; just encouraging folks to use a certain style that’s already in wide use, for reduced noise and better consistency.
The message:
"I try to make my merge commit messages be somewhat “cohesive”, and so I often edit the pull request language to match a more standard layout and language. It’s not a big deal, and often it’s literally just about whitespace so that we don’t have fifteen different indentation models and bullet syntaxes. I generally do it as I read through the text anyway, so it’s not like it makes extra work for me.
But what does make extra work is when some maintainers use passive voice, and then I try to actively rewrite the explanation (or, admittedly, sometimes I just decide I don’t care quite enough about trying to make the messages sound the same).
So I would ask maintainers to please use active voice, and preferably just imperative."
Giving an example of a bad commit message, Torvalds provided this example: “In this pull request, the Xyzzy driver error handling was fixed to avoid a NULL pointer dereference.” He believes this should have been written as follows: “This fixes a NULL pointer dereference in …”
Honestly, makes sense, the active voice version is just… more efficient and easier to parse quickly.
Weird the example he gave isn’t imperative, which I think would be “Fix a null pointer dereference in …”
Usually just start with the verb.
“fix a NULL pointer dereference in …”
It’s not a big deal, and often it’s literally just about whitespace so that we don’t have fifteen different indentation models and bullet syntaxes.
But it’s Linus so everybody likes to think everything he says is blunt and crass.
Any in many ways, that is the way engineers should speak to other engineers when analyzing a problem.
If two or more people can actually share a common goal of finding the best solution, everyone involved should be making sure that no time is wasted chasing poor solutions. This not only takes the ability to be direct to someone else, but it also requires that you can parse what others are telling you.
If someone makes something personal or takes something personal, they need a break. Go take a short walk or something. (Linus is a different sort of creature though. I get it.)
TBH, this is part of the reason I chose my doctor (GP). She is extremely direct when problem solving and has no problems theory-crafting out loud. Sure, we are social to a degree, but we share many of the same professional mannerisms. (We had a short discussion on that topic the other day, actually. I just made her job easier because I give zero fucks about being judged for any of my personal health issues.)
You still should use condoms.
When I see my Dr. or when I talk to other engineers?
Both, just us’em on your ears when talking to engineers.
“Torvalds complains” makes people click.
Agreed this is essentially a style guide.
And here it is in the kernel contribution documentation.
Simple example:
- bad:
Added foo interface. - good: Add foo interface.
So the commit says what applying the patch will do, not what you worked on.
good: Add foo interface.
Another commit style is summarizing what a commit does. In this case it would be someting like:
Adds foo interface.
I think this style is more in line with auditing code.
This indicative mood is something I would send back for correction or correct myself where I am the maintainer. However I understand that although this is pretty consistent through FOSS, it is not a settled matter especially in corpo-land. Most important is that it is consistent within a project. See many differing views here on Stackoverflow, noting the most popular answer though is imperative as Linus requests.
Honestly I’ve never thought about it this much. I’ll have to make an effort to stop writing in past tense.
This has been the recommendation and the way to do it for decades everywhere I’ve been too.
- bad:
There are much smaller projects that ask for more from commits/merge messages. This is a normal ask
Linus Torvalds: creator of Linux and Git, and hero to all English teachers everywhere!
So, uh, I have a colleague who studied linguistics, and when I explained to her that we write commit messages like that, her reaction was basically: What the fuck, why?
My explanation wasn’t as sharp, as I didn’t call it “imperative” but rather just “infinitive”, which got me the immediate backlash that it’s not a sentence then, so why do you put a dot behind it?
She did accept my
descriptivist excusesexplanation that we write it that way, because it’s terser, but I know it didn’t sit well with her.
Will need to see what her reaction is to commanding the repo. 😅you put a dot after commit msg?
Yup. Commit messages are often shown in truncated form, which is when the dot helps to know whether you’re seeing the whole message or not.
Well, and every so often, I’ll use the commit message to document why a change was made, which requires multiple sentences. Then the dot just serves its usual purpose of separating sentences.
Linus Torvalds expressed frustration over the use of passive voice in merge commit messages, preferring active and imperative language instead.
Things To Care About, vol 147, 2nd edition
I like good commit messages that use less words but still give the full picture. If something hacky was done then a comment is better. I like mine with imperative voice since it avoids writing a prose.
“Fix a bug where when doing x then y happens”
“Add setting to control x”
Love a good commit message. I wish I could say what we perceive as “good” is instead thought to be “normal”, but we aren’t there yet I guess.
If the word “imperative mood” is hard to grasp, this is what I do. I just finish this sentence in less than 50 - 75 words, length depending on consensus.
This commit will …
Add more details in the body if needed.
This sort of style extends to PRs/MRs as well.
This PR/MR will …
Upd
Fix
Upd
Fuck
Updated file1
Fuck
Fix
Updated file2
Merge remote-tracking branch other-user1-feature
Fix after merge
Upd
Revert “Merge remote-tracking branch other-user1-feature”
Revert “Revert “Merge remote-tracking branch other-user1-feature””
Updates & fixes -> I personally made updates with my bare hands and then also actively fixed some broken things also with my bare hands
You head him boys! Users of passive voice should be puched in the face!
When I do commit, I write up the title of what I did, and describe it, and then use periods for related commits. Just easier.
You know, if they used the PR workflow with a CI that enforced standardised commit messages, this could be quite easily solved? Forcing everything through a mailing list seems to create more work for maintainers…
Linus is a scary man and seems really hard to work with
The fact that Linux blossomed anyways goes to show his talent
People say things like this but he’s probably successfully worked with several hundred more people than your average worker ever will.
Why is he scary?
He said he has trouble feeling empathy and he’s working on it. When this happens he was super mean towards the volunteer work of some contributors who quit the project.
I’m not blaming Linus, I’m just saying I don’t feel like it’s a good atmosphere to work in Linux. It doesn’t feel friendly at all
Thus the scary and stressing quality
That’s not scary. The trick when dealing with that kind of review is to parse out the technical and not take the rest personally, which maybe takes a certain kind of personality.
Not being a jerk and having empathy are two necessary things to create a healthy work environment and are especially required when volunteers take from their off-time to work on your project.
I agree, but it’s really not scary
I do that by default. I have to actively think about empathy when I do CRs, because the other devs (who should not be doing these kinds of mistakes) just can’t fucking do their job right for once.
But when I am getting a review, I don’t get mad unless I am personally attacked (happened with a colleague who had a very high ego and somehow made it to a higher position, finally being let go about half a year back).
