[magnusmundus]

Do you really prefer digging through years of commit messages to find why a particular line exists? It's a very impractical place for those. And good luck finding the origin of that line if there was an extensive refactor in between.

Also, how do you notify a later viewer that there's a "why" they should check? A comment that says "check commit messages for this line"? :)

Not to mention: you're losing the notes as soon as you move repositories, or worse, version control systems. Yes, I've hit the "SVN git migrate" wall way too many times. For that reason I even started leaving issue numbers in comments for when it's particularly important, in case we lose the commit<->ticket link down the line.

[jlc]

Typically, it isn't digging. It's the last commit, maybe the one before it, and I have tools for doing this (e.g., magit, fugitive).

I don't notify anyone, nor do I need to. When I encounter a WTF moment, I look at the commit messages. When there's nothing there, I curse the last developer.

I guess it can be fun spelunking through commit messages, though, to see when the comment was added and if it still applies.