Subject: Re: [RFC 1/3] wt-status: Make conflict hint message more consistent with other hints

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 12:34:03 -0800

Hi,

Andrew Wong wrote:

> [Subject: wt-status: Make conflict hint message more consistent with other hints]

Thanks for working on this.

Could you include a little more detail?  What other hints is this
making the message more consistent with?

Ideally the commit message would include a quick sample interaction,
so the reviewer could see the user going "Wha?" and then look at the
patch to see how it resolves the confusion.

[...]
> --- a/wt-status.c
> +++ b/wt-status.c
> @@ -899,7 +899,7 @@ static void show_merge_in_progress(struct wt_status *s,
>  		status_printf_ln(s, color, _("You have unmerged paths."));
>  		if (s->hints)
>  			status_printf_ln(s, color,
> -				_("  (fix conflicts and run \"git commit\")"));
> +				_("  (fix conflicts, and use \"git commit\" to conclude the merge)"));

Quick thoughts:

 - The comma just moves the message closer to the right margin.  I think
   it makes the message less readable.

 - What else would "git commit" do other than concluding the merge?
   What confusion is this meant to prevent?

 - Would introducing a new "git merge --continue" command help?

   Advantages: (1) the name of the command makes it obvious what
   it does; (2) the command could check that there is actually
   a merge in progress, helping the user when the state is not
   what they think; (3) consistency with "git cherry-pick --abort" /
   "git cherry-pick --continue".

   Disadvantage: redundancy (but see (2) above).

Hope that helps,
Jonathan