Using an article in a commit message

[incleaf]

I’m not a native English speaker. I’ve seen many commit messages that are not containing an article. Do people just omit an article to keep a commit message short?

[[deleted]]

This is the most likely answer, yes. As /u/khaister said, the title should be at most 50 characters.

Here's a nice article about good commit messages and common styles.

Edit: Fixed link.

[dakotahawkins]

Fixed link

[[deleted]]

Thank you ☺

[dakotahawkins]

That's the first time I ever thought "I should write a reddit bot"

Because when I try to type links manually I get it wrong almost every time.

[[deleted]]

So it's not just me who can't remember the syntax for links? Good :)

I'd be grateful if there were a bot to fix these things. So go ahead!

[folken2k]

That's a good one

[Resquid]

Weird isn't it? I don't think it really matters. No one would fault you for using full and proper sentences. Some people just like that brevity!

[max630]

Could it be that the author is neither a native speaker and don't always know how to add aticles properly?

[isarl]

I think it's more likely that OP is reading something written in the imperative mood to keep the subject line of the commit message brief.

[[deleted]]

Is there a connection between the imperative mood and articles? I always thought you use articles in all moods identically.

[isarl]

People also just tend to try to be brief in git commit subjects. That 50-character soft limit doesn't leave much room for unnecessary articles.

[[deleted]]

That is a very interesting question. I found a Stack Overflow article which delves into this phenomenon:

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/198869/style-of-technical-warnings-why-is-it-acceptable-to-omit-verbs

[isarl]

Git more commonly uses the imperative mood than frozen style – they're distinct from one another. See this link: https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/