Developers sometimes like to think that the - otherwise amazing - work they are putting down or checking into repositories is so important in itself that every other aspect of the project is secondary. Arguments like, "who cares if my commit can't be traced back to an actual issue when my solution is so elegant? And come on, who looks at the commit history anyway?" are fine examples of this.
Too often they only focus on the task at hand and on the near term, forgetting that even in the distant future many people will need to work with and understand the changes they made.
As a DevOps team member or a Developer Team Lead, you need non-intrusive, educative and friendly tools to help, and if needed, force developers to follow commonly accepted code change and repository rules. Keeping a consistent code change history is a good practice as it ensures automatic adherence to your company processes and improves the traceability of what work has been performed on what task.
As we know, "software eats the world", which also means that in some industries clear software code change traceability is more than being a pedant. In strictly regulated industries like healthcare, aviation or banking, where software products are mission and safety critical, it's part of industry regulations. The code changes, and particularly the details about what has been changed, where and why it was necessary need to be easily understood and followed by auditors months or even years later.
Watch the Commit Policy for Jira webinar!
Watch the recording of our webinar "How commit policies enable rigorous source code change control, end-to-end traceability and faster code reviews" and learn about how the Commit Policy for Jira app can help you automate the verification of committed code changes.
On the webinar:
Watch the Commit Policy for Jira webinar!
Levente Szabo _Midori_
Digital Marketing and Customer Success
Midori
Budapest
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