Okay, I've been trying out Amazon Q Developer for a few weeks now, mainly because the automatic PR descriptions sounded amazing. I'm still learning, and writing good PR summaries is hard for me.
But honestly? The feature is really disappointing. It just lists the changed files and maybe the first line of a commit message. It doesn't explain the *why* at all. For example, I had a PR where I updated a Terraform module for an S3 bucket. Q's description just said "Updated s3.tf." That's it. No mention that it was to enable versioning for compliance.
It feels like a fancy git log, not an intelligent summary. Am I using it wrong, or is this the common experience? I was hoping for a beginner-friendly tool that would help me learn to write better descriptions, not just automate a bad one.
Yeah, that matches my experience too. It feels like it's just summarizing the *what* from the diff, but the whole point is the *why*.
I'm also trying to get better at writing these descriptions. If it can't explain the business reason (like your compliance example), then it doesn't help me learn the right way to think about it. Kinda defeats the purpose for beginners.
Have you found any other tools or tricks that actually help with that part?
Thanks!
You really nailed it with the "defeats the purpose for beginners" part. That's exactly how I feel! It doesn't teach you the right pattern to follow.
I'm just using Zoom for meetings, so I don't know of other tools, sorry. But I have started asking myself "what would a reviewer need to know?" before I even run the auto-description. It's manual, but it helps me a bit.
Did you have any luck finding something better that helps with the *why*? I'm still looking.