Days in the Life of Mo

There are few things as humbling as opening an old Git log.

You scroll through the history of your own code, expecting to find traces of genius, and instead, you find:

“final final fixed (for real this time)”

“it works, don’t touch”

“?????”

“added stuff idk”

Ladies and gentlemen, the archaeological ruins of your own brain.

Commit messages are like little time capsules. Each one a note from your past self, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes unhinged, and often completely useless to the poor soul (usually you) trying to make sense of what happened three sprints ago.

A Short History of Bad Commit Messages

Software engineers have been writing commit messages since 1972, when Git’s grandparent, the Source Code Control System (SCCS), appeared. Then came RCS, CVS, Subversion… all the way to Git, Linus Torvalds’ gift and curse to humanity.

And somehow, after 50 years of progress, we still have people committing with:

“misc changes”
“update”
“fix”

What fix? Why fix? Who hurt you, Kevin?

A good commit message tells a story, not just what changed, but why. It’s the difference between “Added error handling for user login failures” and “added stuff idk.” One helps future you. The other will have you muttering at your own ghost during a 2AM debug session.

Commit Messages Are Love Letters to the Future

Let’s be real: your future self deserves better.

That commit message you dash off in a caffeine rush might feel harmless now, but when you revisit this code months later, after three deadlines and one existential crisis, you’ll wish you’d written something coherent.

A well-crafted commit message is an act of kindness. It’s you saying, “Hey future me, here’s what I did and why, you’re welcome.”

It’s documentation disguised as empathy.

So What Makes a Good Commit Message?

According to Chris Beams’ famous guide on Git commit messages (yes, there’s a guide, and yes, you probably ignored it), the structure is simple:

1. Separate subject from body with a blank line.
2. Limit the subject line to 50 characters.
3. Capitalize the subject line.
4. Use the imperative mood.
5. Wrap the body at 72 characters.
6. Explain what and why, not how.

So instead of:

“fixed stuff”

Try:

“Fix null reference error when user profile is missing data”

You’re not writing poetry, but you are writing clarity.

And yes, I know… sometimes you’re in the zone. You’ve just conquered a gnarly bug that’s been haunting your dreams for a week. The last thing you want to do is wordsmith your commit message. But trust me, two months later, you’ll thank yourself for not leaving behind a digital mystery novel.

The Psychology of Lazy Commits

There’s a reason we all write bad commits at some point: ego depletion. When your mental energy is spent, your brain opts for shortcuts. You skip comments, you ignore naming conventions, and your commit message becomes a primal grunt: “done.”

But developers who write good commits are the ones who understand their work as a conversation. Not just with machines, but with people. Future collaborators. Reviewers. Maybe even interns who’ll curse your name when they find “final_v2_real_fix_v3”.

My Personal Turning Point

I used to be the queen of chaos commits. I once had a Git history that looked like a cry for help. Then one day, I joined a project where every commit message read like a diary entry. Clear, calm, beautifully formatted.

Suddenly, I understood the codebase without asking a single question. It felt like reading a story, one where the author actually cared that I’d understand it. That’s when I realized: this wasn’t about process. It was about respect.

Write Like Someone’s Watching (Because They Are)

Every time you commit, remember, someone’s going to see it. Maybe a manager, a teammate, or a future you, barely holding it together after a long week.

So write your commit messages like you’re leaving a breadcrumb trail out of the forest. Be kind. Be clear. And for the love of clean version history, stop writing “final-final-realfinal.”

Your Git log should read like a story of progress, not a chronicle of chaos.

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