The Blame Game

When you’re reading through code, you may want to know when it was last changed. If you’re using git, there’s another tool called git-blame, which displays the last revision and the author who most recently modified each line of a file that you’re interested in. This is useful for determining when certain functions were last modified and by whom.

Use the command below to view the last revision and last person to touch each line of a file:

$ git blame <file>

​confusion​ It should be mentioned that git-blame’s intentions are not to actually blame someone for writing a bad piece of code, and hopefully you won’t use it for that purpose. It’s simply another tool at your disposal for understanding the code and how it evolved.

You should consider using git-blame when working on a bug you’ve been assigned to, or when you have questions about a specific function. Git-blame will give you clues as to who you should talk to first when you have a question regarding specific lines of code.

Depending on the age of the codebase, the most recent author may no longer be with your company. If that’s the case, you won’t be able to ask them any questions, but you’re not out of luck. With git-blame, you will still be able to find the commit hash, which you can use to view the full context of the changes. Oftentimes, being able to read the commit message and see all the other changes that were made in the same commit will give you more context for why the change was made.

If you’re still not able to find any developers who are familiar with the code you’re looking at, use git-blame to find the developers who made modifications to other parts of the file and ask them if they’re familiar with the code in question. Chances are you’ll be able to find someone who has worked in that part of the codebase before or reviewed the pull requests for the code in question.