What did I be taught from a US Marine about Software program engineering | by Madhu Sudhan | Nov, 2023

Why does particular particulars matter:

Curiously sufficient, I labored with a dev who use to be a US Marine. yeah, I used to be stunned when he stated he use to be a Marine! (why was he right here writing software program is a narrative for one more time), here’s what I discovered from the dialog I had.

In a rush to get issues merged in, I added simply fundamental data for my group to know why this pull request is required however sadly common group members who knew what I used to be engaged on was not obtainable for the overview so the marine took a take a look at it, boy was he sad with the commit and he was rightly so, I understood it after I had a dialogue with him.

He began of with a narrative of his Marine days, in one in every of his missions, he was suppose to repair an Plane gear, and since they have been on a distant place all that they had of their disposal was few fundamental instruments and a small plate nailed on the gear that’s suppose to be a guide for it. he was capable of repair the malfunction by studying that tiny guide, though it was the primary time he was engaged on it but it surely contained simply sufficient data to have the ability to perceive the gear.

with this he superbly conveyed why he was not pleased with the commit message, it did not comprise sufficient data for the particular person taking a look at it for the primary time. as a software program engineer we should always all the time think about the truth that that is an ever altering business, and nothing stays fixed, individuals with whom you labored yesterday might now not be working on the firm at this time, so it is best to all the time do your greatest to supply sufficient data for individuals who come after you simply to make their life little simpler, or on this occasion commit message to comprise sufficient data even for the primary time looker that what precisely this commit is required for. since that day i’ve developed a behavior of setting my commit messages in a template

• Why is that this PR wanted/ What downside is it fixing
• Was there any modifications or addition achieved to current structure
• Often add screenshots if its a UI activity so reviewer know the way the ultimate system seem like. (I choose including the screenshots within the Jira ticket however my group wish to hold it within the MR since they don’t have to go to one other place to checkout the screenshots)