Message ID | 63efd7ab.170a0220.3442b.6609@mx.google.com (mailing list archive) |
---|---|
State | Handled Elsewhere |
Headers | show |
Series | [GIT,PULL] hardening updates for v6.3-rc1 | expand |
On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 11:38 AM Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> wrote: > > Please pull these hardening updates for v6.3-rc1. So I've pulled this, but while looking at it, I see commit 5c0f220e1b2d ("Merge branch 'for-linus/hardening' into for-next/hardening"). And that one-liner shortlog part is literally the whole commit message. I've said this before, and apparently I need to say this again: if you cannot be bothered to explain *WHY* a merge exists, then that merge is buggy garbage by definition. This really should be a rule that every single developer should take to heart. I'm not just putting random words together in a random order. I repeat: if you cannot explain a merge, then JUST DON'T DO IT. It's really that simple. There is absolutely *NEVER* an excuse for merges without explaining why those merges exist. In this case, I really think that merge should not have existed at all, and the lack of explanation is because there *IS* no explanation for it. But if there was a reason for it, then just state it, dammit, and make that merge commit look sensible. Because right now it just looks entirely pointless. And I literally *detest* pointless merges. They only make the history look worse and harder to read. Linus
The pull request you sent on Fri, 17 Feb 2023 11:38:18 -0800:
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/kees/linux.git tags/hardening-v6.3-rc1
has been merged into torvalds/linux.git:
https://git.kernel.org/torvalds/c/4a7d37e824f57dbace61abf62f53843800bd245c
Thank you!
On February 21, 2023 11:16:33 AM PST, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote: >On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 11:38 AM Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> wrote: >> >> Please pull these hardening updates for v6.3-rc1. > >So I've pulled this, but while looking at it, I see commit >5c0f220e1b2d ("Merge branch 'for-linus/hardening' into >for-next/hardening"). > >And that one-liner shortlog part is literally the whole commit message. > >I've said this before, and apparently I need to say this again: if you >cannot be bothered to explain *WHY* a merge exists, then that merge is >buggy garbage by definition. Okay, understood. This was a merge of the fixes for v6.2. I'll explain that more clearly in the log from now on. :) -Kees
On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 11:49 AM Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org> wrote: > > >I've said this before, and apparently I need to say this again: if you > >cannot be bothered to explain *WHY* a merge exists, then that merge is > >buggy garbage by definition. > > Okay, understood. This was a merge of the fixes for v6.2. I'll explain that more clearly in the log from now on. :) So I really want people to document their merges, not just so that I (and others) can see "oh, that's why it exists at all", but also because I want to make people think about their merges more in general. For example, one reason why people do these kinds of merges is because they are starting to do some new development for the next release, and that new development then depends on fixes or infrastructure that they had in another branch (like a "for-linus" branch in case of fixes). So then they - mindlessly - just do a "git merge that-branch" and the end result looks very much like what you sent me. In a slightly better world, they then actually write an explanatory commit message for that merge, knowing that I ask for them, and the merge commit message ends up being exactly that kind of slightly odd "Now I'm starting a new thing that depends on the fixes I already sent upstream, so I'm merging that branch" Which while certainly better than no explanation at all sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? Yeah, add a few details on just what you depend on and why, and it gets much better, but it's all going to be a bit hand-wavy about future work that you haven't even written yet. And *that* will them maybe make you then go "Ahh, I'm doing things wrong". Because the "nice git way" to do that kind of thing is to actually realize "oh, I'm starting new work that depends on the fixes I already sent upstram, so I should just make a new topic branch and start at that point that I needed". And then - once you've done all the "new work" that depended on that state, only at *THAT* point do you merge the topic branch. And look - you have exactly the same commits: you have one (or more) normal commits that implement the new feature, and you have one merge commit, but notice how much easier it is to write the explanation for the merge when you do it *after* the work. Instead of having to waffle about "future work depends on this feature that was in another branch, so I'm merging this branch", your merge commit now makes *sense*. You're not merging some old state in order to create new features, you are literally just merging the completed new feature. So *this* is one reason I want people to really think about, and explain, their merges. Because it may be that having to explain it makes you go "Oh, I'm doing this wrong". Now, in your case, I don't actually think you needed that merge for any "future new work" at all. I think you just randomly did a merge to just get the same warning fixes that you had already sent me. So in this case, it smells like the merge was just entirely superfluous. Those kinds of superfluous merges can be ok - it's just annoying to have a development branch that still shows some artifact that you already fixed elsewhere. But they still need the explanation. And for that case, I want the explanation partly to make it clear that you really *thought* about it, and partly just so that I can see why you did it. Because we have a very real history where people did mindless daily back-merges like this "just because" with absolutely no rhyme or reason, just because they wanted to start each day with the most recent base, and it really gets very ugly. The development history can go from a DAG that actually visualizes the different development streams nicely to a spider-net maze of inexplicable merges very quickly. Linus