Changing a commit message

[Andrew Bennetts]

TPJ wrote:
>> (...)
>> Nonetheless, this can be done. The matter here is that in order to
>> allow for modifiable commit messages, a bunch of complication should
>> be put in the code for merges, updates, pulls, pushes, etc. Is it
>> worth the effort? Even I (who would love that kind of change) am
>> doubtful here.
>
> And I'm not. If it's technically possible (and I'm sure it is), it
> should be done. The rule is simple: don't like it - don't use it, but
> don't limit the way others use Bazaar.
>
> I think that the problem is different. In your scenario there are
> problems with propagation of commit messages changes made to old
> revisions, but there aren't any problems with propagation of bug
> fixes. And, IMO, the real problem is that both commit messages bugs
> and source code bugs are *bugs*, but they are treated differently.

Source code is different to commit messages: it's data vs. metadata.

The core issue is that instead of having revisions of data, you now need
to have revisions of revisions, which is a significantly more
complicated thing to present in the user interface (ignoring the
technical issues).

Being able to add annotations to revisions post hoc could be a nice
feature, but it's not clear to me that is as simple a concept as you
seem to think it is.  Perhaps you should write a “strawman” UI proposal,
to show what you think it should look like, and how changes would be
propagated and merged.  e.g.:

    bzr commit -m "My message"
    bzr edit-commit -r -1 
    ...

etc.

-Andrew.