I am currently involved in open source project. Somebody wrote:
This commit breaks it.
What does this mean? I think that it means either:
This commit created the issue, or
This commit fixed the issue.
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To break has a lot of different meanings, but they all mean something bad. So it's 1.– Glorfindel ♦Commented Jan 31, 2017 at 13:51
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@Glorfindel "to break" does not ALWAYS mean something bad. If we say "his fever broke" that means his fever ended, which presumably is good. There's also "I got a break", which means, "something good happened to me". But in this case "break" is something bad– JayCommented Jan 31, 2017 at 14:07
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In the first case, fever is bad, so if it breaks, it's good. In the second case, break is a noun.– Glorfindel ♦Commented Jan 31, 2017 at 14:09
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Note that it doesn't represent the issue, error, fault - it refers to the project (which was "broken, made inoperative" by committing those faulty code changes).– FumbleFingersCommented Jan 31, 2017 at 15:00
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2 Answers
I imagine you're probably aware of what a "commit" is, but, for anyone that isn't, it's a name for a record of changes in a version control system (a system which tracks changes to documents – that is, keeps a record of the versions of the documents). Each commit contains a set of changes introduced by the current version as compared to the previous version.
The context (provided by the link in the OP) is that someone has reported an error with a program. A person involved with the maintenance and development of the program has then responded:
This commit breaks it.
Provided in the response is a reference to a specific commit (set of changes).
The correct interpretation is #1 in your question – that this commit introduced (or created) the issue. Please refer to this definition (from Oxford Dictionaries):
break
VERB1.3 Make or become inoperative:
[no object] "the machine has broken and they can't fix it until next week"
[with object] "he's broken the video"
In this sentence, "it" refers to the program that is broken (as a result of the commit).
Surprisingly, it was the commit bit that I needed to check up on, but then I saw it was GitHub and it all made sense!
To clarify, a commit is a submission of code. The commenter is basically stating that this new piece of code causes an error with the program (believe it's the game, Half Life.
The first phrase is the most suitable explanation:
This commit created the issue
