Re: Draft of Git Rev News edition 101

From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name>
Date: Jul 31, 2023, 10:10 UTC
Message-ID: <a5c359d6-6c21-489c-a4a3-a21219ab727a@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAP8UFD1M3sRPEJ42v2=pQ_CQYY+PN64Swx70O7D_=VfbhSwKLg@mail.gmail.com>

> The Magic of Empty Git Commit by Pradumna Saraf on DEV.to - a simple
> description on how to create an empty commit, and why one would might
> want one.

The article does a poor job of motivating empty commits in my opinion.

Show 7 quoted lines

> > Although seemingly counterintuitive, [empty commits] offer valuable
> benefits for documentation, triggering automation.
> […]
> Empty commits might seem unusual, but they offer significant advantages
> in managing version control. By documenting milestones, triggering
> automation processes, and maintaining codebase stability, empty commits
> can improve collaboration and project management.

So one use-case that is clear from the above is as a hack for triggering builds or something that require a new commit (in other words: that can’t simply be rerun). The rest—documenting milestones, maintaining codebase stability—is not obvious since you usually do that in a regular commit.

You can see from the comments that other people also don’t understand what the motivation is.

I use empty commits myself because I’ve seen use-cases for it described on this list. For example: storing the cover letter as the first (empty) commit on the branch. Definitely useful for in-progress work.

The article, in contrast, just asserts that it is useful and then provides a one-liner as its technical content.

My opinion from the peanut gallery is that the article isn’t worth the inclusion.

-- 
Kristoffer Haugsbakk