And that’s why you always leave a note!

One thing which I think all Leaders of Software Development Teams should enforce is leaving a note whenever anyone checks something into source control.

Some people may argue, “Somethings are so simple it doesn’t need a comment. It will lead to useless comments in your log.” This statement is true. Maybe you just renamed a variable in a method. And you don’t want see that in the log. Worse I have seen it lead to people writting, “Something” for their description.

However, what’s worse is when you don’t enforce it. If you don’t enforce it people will almost never write comments. I am just as guilty of this as anyone. Before I enforced leaving a note, when I wanted to check in I would immediately click the check in button without even thinking about writing a message.  What would you prefer a log with a few meaningless comments or no log at all?

Forcing people to leave a note gives a much better check in procedure. It forces you to think about what you have done, review what you’ve done. This check can make you write better code.

Even people who I’ve seen write a note of “Something” mostly do it correctly. This makes me assume they reviewed their code, couldn’t find anything major and then write “Something”. That’s not really too bad.

The final reason (and best reason) is given in Arrested Development Season 1 Episode 10 – Pier Pressure. So as J. Walter Weatherman says, “And that’s why you always leave a note!”