So there I was staring at what was probably the scariest pull request I've seen so far. I had no hope of getting through it without crying my eyes out or banging my head against the desk.
But I get ahead of the story.
A few months ago, we started working on some accessibility fixes. We created a new code branch. That's basically a copy of the code at that point in time where we could make changes without affecting the main code base. And got to work.
One week passed. Then two. And three.
I figured they were being through. Accessibility is important stuff and there's nothing wrong with taking your time to do it right.
Then a month went by. By the second month, when I still got nothing but radio silence, I was beginning to worry.
Which brings us to the moment when I was staring at the pull request. Think of a pull request as a way of saying "hey, here are the changes I'd like to now move into the main code base."
Jaw. Floor.
78 commits. That's like 78 different save points where changes were made. I'm used to pull requests with 10, maybe 15 if you're feeling crazy, commits.
109 files were changed in some way.
Almost 2000 things were added and 400 were removed.
Scary stuff. This isn't a pull request. It's a rewrite!
How the hell is anyone supposed to review this and make sense of it?!
And is it even worth it? Because by that time, the main code base has moved on without these changes. That's three months of other people making updates, fixing bugs, adding and removing things. The conflicts alone would be a nightmare! Imagine trying to combine two people's different drafts of the same novel.
This is why we break work into small chunks, people. Small, reviewable, manageable chunks that don't require a PhD to understand what the f is going on.