Comments: Strategies For Small, Focused Pull Requests

[pepopowitz]

A common suggestion for improving pull requests (PRs) is to "make your PR small and focused". I myself gave this suggestion in a recent article on this very blog about including context in PRs.

Like most internet advice, this can feel like the ["draw the rest of the owl"][draw-the-rest-of-the-owl] meme. Even if we're in agreement that I should make a PR smaller...how do I do it? How do I avoid a big PR when there's a lot of cross-cutting changes to make? How do I create small, focused units of work when I'm building a large feature? How can I overcome my perfectionism and submit a PR that feels incomplete to me because the edges aren't all polished?