22-25 April 2026

What makes a good commit? Good Practices for Data Professionals

2025

TL; DR

Committing code is an integral part of the development lifecycle. However, not all commits or commit messages are created equal. As more data professionals are required or expected to use source control within a continuous integration or deployment solution, a lack of good information is reducing the efficacy and usefulness of commit messages.

Session Details

Committing code is an integral part of the development lifecycle. However, not all commits
or commit messages are created equal. As more data professionals are required or expected to use source control within a continuous integration or deployment solution, a lack of good information is reducing the efficacy and usefulness of commit messages.

In this session we will explore the source control system git, what makes a commit and what a commit message is for.

We will also learn what makes a good, and a bad, commit message and how to automatically link commit messages to User Stories and release notes.
 
You will leave this session with a better understanding of commits and commit messages and useful guidance to make them most effective for yourself and for your team.

3 things you'll get out of this session

You will leave this session with a better understanding of commits and commit messages and useful guidance to make them most effective for yourself and for your team.

Speakers

Rob Sewell

blog.robsewell.com

Rob Sewell's previous sessions

The DBA in a hybrid environment
Ideal for database administrators, developers, and database reliability engineers, this training day will explore all the skills you need to enable you to manage SQL Server estates spanning on-premises and cloud environments.
 
Nose-Dive Narratives: Slide Karaoke 2024
Get ready to wrap up a serious day of learning with a dash of humor, spontaneity, and friendly competition! SQLBits presents "Slide Karaoke" where SQLBits speakers reveal their hidden talents while vying for bragging rights. This session promises to be a one-of-a-kind experience that will leave you in stitches and awe, and the speakers scrambling for their non-existent notes!
 
20 mins to git comfortable
In this new world we're all developers! Whether we're writing application code or describing our infrastructure using bicep or terraform we need to keep it safe. Git and source control is our best option for developing on our own and as part of a team… but git is scary! In this 20 min session we'll go through just enough to git you comfortable with source control.
 
10 Productivity tools in 20 minutes
You are busy, we are busy, everyone is busy. These are the tools that two busy consultants use to improve their productivity. We want to tell you about the tools that we use; that maximise our time, simplify our life, reduce our key strokes and generally make us appear more amazing. So that you can use them too. We have 20 minutes, so we wont go into much detail but we have some good quick stories to tell.
 
There is a time and a place for everything
There is a time and a place for everything. John and Rob, being consultants, often say "Well, it depends" Lets talk about some of the times when the "rules" may not fit
 
SQL Notebooks in Azure Data Studio for the DBA
While you might have read about notebooks being used for Data Science, this session is for DBAs. You will see how you can use SQL Notebooks to simplify your work.
 
How To Start Collaborating With A GitHub Repository
Wanted to join with open-source projects but don’t know how? This quick session will give you all that you need to start doing so.
 
Creating Azure SQL Db Users with an SPN using Azure DevOps
This session will take you through the steps required to build an automated solution to create an Azure SQL Database with a Service Principal and create users and apply permissions
 
Validate Your SQL Server Estate with Ease Using dbachecks
Learn how you can validate your SQL Server estate with ease using dbachecks
 
Introduction to Pester-TDD for PowerShell
Start from nothing and use Test Driven Development to write a PowerShell function that uses the Microsoft Cognitive Services API to analyse pictures. I will take you on a journey from nothing to a complete function
 
Advice and guidance on becoming a speaker or volunteer
Want to become a community speaker or involved in the SQL Community? Don't feel confident enough to try? Need some advice and guidance? We want to help you, we will help you