Re: [PATCH 1/2] quote-email populates the fields

[Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>]

On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 4:04 AM, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@univ-lyon1.fr> wrote:
> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
>
>> Payre Nathan <second.payre@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> From: Tom Russello <tom.russello@grenoble-inp.org>
>>>
>>> ---
>>
>> Missing something here???
>
> To clarify for Nathan, Thimothee and Danial: the cover-letter is an
> introduction send before the patch series. It can be needed to explain
> the overall approach followed by the series. But in general, it does not
> end up in the Git history, i.e. after the review is finished, the
> cover-letter is forgotten.
>
> OTOH, the commit messages for each patch is what ends up in the Git
> history. This is what people will find later when running e.g. "git
> blame", "git bisect" or so. Clearly the future user examining history
> expects more than "quote-email populates the fields" (which was a good
> reminder during development, but is actually a terrible subject line for
> a final version).
>
> A quick advice: if in doubt, prefer writing explanations in commit
> message rather than the cover letter. If still in doubt, write the
> explanations twice: once quickly in the cover letter and once more
> detailed in the commit message.

Oh, and I thought the sign offs.