Digression on git; how I'll reduce minor commits

[Teika Kazura <teika lavabit com>]

Hi. The last push of my branch included a few minor doc commits, but
they can be combined to others, so I should have do so in order to
reduce commits, but I didn't know how to do it. Let me explain how
I'll do better next time.

A commit should be a unit of "good changes". In another words, patches
grouped together by their roles form a commit. My main job now is to
rewrite news.texi, but it's gradual. By nature, all can be squeezed
into a sole commit in the above sense. (But it's good to push from
time to time so that people can read it and see what's going on. A
commit per a week or two is moderate.)

Last time I made many commits, because git doesn't like much
uncommitted changes being around; merge, cherry-pick, etc. I edit my
local branch, but at the same time I play around with upstream and my
other branches.  But git-stash can easily clutter things, and I don't
like it. So commits.

I come up with a new recipe: 
$ git checkout -b continuos-edit  # branch dedicated to continuous edits
$                  # write doc. Oh, new arrival.
$ git commit -a    # I don't hesitate to commit on this branch, 
$                  # instead of stash
$ git merge master # what's new?
$                  # think, copy edit, ask at ML, copy read ...
$                  # when ready to publish
$ git merge master # make sure it's up-to-date
$ git commit -a    # now, let's go to outside world!
$ git checkout branch-to-push
$ git diff master..continuos-edit | git apply
$ git commit -a -v
Seems not bad for me. Does anyone know better way?

Thank you for reading. Regards,
Teika (Teika kazura)