Git commit message formatting and cleaning up branches

[kavonszadkowski]

This is not a critical issue in terms of the code itself, but I would like to propose that we all try to move towards Git conventions for commit messages to make the history easier to read for everyone.

A great explanation of how to create commit messages for Git can be found here: http://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/.

The most important rules are:

• limit first line of commit message to 50 characters
• use the imperative form ("Add utility function for xy" instead of "Added utility function for xy")
• capitalize the first word, but add no period (".") in the end
• don't mention your name in the commit message - the user name is logged anyway

I'd also like to point out the possibility of interactively rebasing your (feature) branch before merging, which makes it possible to re-structure your commits and change your commit messages. This can be greatly useful when a branch became cluttered over time and you would like to clean it up: https://robots.thoughtbot.com/git-interactive-rebase-squash-amend-rewriting-history

Cheers,

Kai