Mandate Github "Squash and merge"

[LogicParrot]

Github has a neat feature now: Squash and merge. What it does is squash the commits of a PR into one commit, and then merges it with Master without a merge commit. The makes history cleaner. For instance, see the last two merges in master and compare them with older merges. I think we should mandate this by unchecking "Allow merge commits" in Github. I have no access to that, so can someone please do it?

[LogicParrot]

More info here: https://github.com/blog/2141-squash-your-commits

[worktycho]

Done.

[xoft]

I don't think this is a good idea. Sometimes the PR consists of several commits, each of which makes sense to actually be a separate commit. I'm very much against forcing a squash.

Pity that the GitHub team seems to think with something other than their brains when designing new features.

[bearbin]

I also don't understand the problem with merge commits - what makes them so bad?

They seem like a good thing to me, so that the branch history is preserved.

[LogicParrot]

[xoft]

In my opinion, merge commits can make the history very, very tangled and difficult to read, especially if attempting to bisect the history for a regression etc. Rebasing makes the history much more concise.

A mix of squash-merges and rebase-merges is probably the best solution for now.