[0x000xca0xfe]

Writing commit messages (or comments in general) is like practicing vocabulary, but for your mental understanding of the current problem.

Taking a step back and thinking about what I have actually done often helps me to find misconceptions, the worst bugs of them all.

Automating this away would be like learning a foreign language by pasting book exercises into a translation app... you may get good grades, but does it help your understanding if you didn't put in the effort yourself?

[chrismorgan]

Yep. More than a few times I’ve finished a piece of work, and in writing the commit message explaining the whys and wherefores, realised my solution was actually flawed, or that a better solution was possible, and so thrown the entire thing away and started again. I love writing commit messages.