Ask HN: Why does GitHub not have purpose of the module in the comments?

When you push an update, you comment on what the recent changes were.

But when you first look at someone's repo you want to know what the various parts do.

For instance, you might want to know if this particular piece of code writes to the database, carries business logic, or updates the screen.

The comment "minor tweaks and font update" is probably the least useful. (It is very useful for someone tracking the history of changes).

Why not have TWO comment fields: one that gives you the purpose of the module, and the second that gives the purpose of the update? And display them both in Github?

1 comment

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midgetjones 9y ago ↗

Well you can add a description already: it's the title followed by two carriage returns, and anything after becomes the description[0].

Although your use case only makes sense for new modules/classes, with one commit per file. It sounds to me like you'd be better off just commenting your code.

However I do agree that people are very often terrible at writing useful commit messages.

[0] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16122234/how-to-commit-a-...