threads / discuss / 55618

Git commit allow empty docs unclear

Subject: Git commit allow empty docs unclear

## tl;dr

3 messages between May 4, 2021 and May 4, 2021.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

Cristiana Man· May 4, 2021, 18:31 UTC · lore

Hi

The documentation for Git commit --allow-empty option (https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#Documentation/git-commit.txt---allow-empty) contains the acronym SCM which is confusing to me. Do you mean Software Configuration Management, Source Control Management or Source Code Management? Clarifications are appreciated! --

Kind regards, Cristiana Man

Felipe Contreras· May 4, 2021, 20:31 UTC · re: Cristiana Man · lore

RE: Git commit allow empty docs unclear

Cristiana Man wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> The documentation for Git commit --allow-empty option
> (https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#Documentation/git-commit.txt---allow-empty)
> contains the acronym SCM which is confusing to me.
> Do you mean Software Configuration Management, Source Control
> Management or Source Code Management?

The documentation is on git-SCM.com, also, there's a glossary [1]:

  SCM: Source code management (tool).

Cheers.

[1] https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Philip Oakley· May 4, 2021, 20:35 UTC · re: Cristiana Man · lore

Re: Git commit allow empty docs unclear

hi Cristiana,

On 04/05/2021 19:31, Cristiana Man wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Hi
>
> The documentation for Git commit --allow-empty option
> (https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#Documentation/git-commit.txt---allow-empty)
> contains the acronym SCM which is confusing to me.
> Do you mean Software Configuration Management, Source Control
> Management or Source Code Management?
> Clarifications are appreciated!

Yes, all of them ;-)

Basically the Git (Linux codebase) philosophy is to always have meaningful changes, with meaningful commit change messages.

When Git was being developed (i.e. being implemented in many other code bases) there was a lot of migration of from old "documentation" systems, which often had 'cruft' where options were needed to allow such empty commits, and the common TLA (three Letter abbreviation) of the time 'SCM' could cover all of them. The key aspect is that they were 'foreign' to the Git ecosystem.

Hope that helps.

> --
>
> Kind regards,
> Cristiana Man

-- Philip