From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox•net>
To: "Francis Moreau" <francis.moro@gmail•com>
Cc: "Jay Cliburn" <jacliburn@bellsouth•net>,
git@vger•kernel.org, "Jeff Garzik" <jeff@garzik•org>,
"Linus Torvalds" <torvalds@osdl•org>
Subject: Re: Updated Kernel Hacker's guide to git
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:26:06 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <7vvek41b29.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <38b2ab8a0612220135p6925be4cmf003811f616395ba@mail.gmail.com> (Francis Moreau's message of "Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:35:47 +0100")
"Francis Moreau" <francis.moro@gmail•com> writes:
> I think this part is really confusing. For a new comer, saying that:
>
> git diff a b == git diff a..b
>
> is really not intuitive. Maybe just because adding a new symbol ".."
> in git diff command line means (for me) that we're doing a special
> diff. I would never thought by my own that ".." means a simple "to".
We did not originally have "A B"; you were supposed to always
say "A..B". But all other SCM had "A B" notation, so we added
support for both because doing so was trivial and there is no
risk of confusion (because diff is about two points while log is
about a set). These two notations are interchangeable for
"diff". If it confuses you, you can stick to the "git diff A B"
notation. Of if you are like Linus, stick to "A..B" notation.
Either way, you can pretend that the other notation does not
even exist and be happy ;-).
Yes, users often wondered why "git diff" accepts "A B", "git
log" wants "A..B" and "git log A B" is a disaster. But the root
cause of the confusion was not about notation but about the
conceptual difference (two points vs a set).
I do not think changing the meaning of "diff A..B" to what "diff
A...B" means is a good thing. The notation "..." even _looks_
like a magic, and in diff context, what it does _is_ magic (it
is magic in log context, too). You are giving two points, but
what actually is used as the two points for diff are different
from what you gave; in that sense, it is a very good notation.
Changing it would confuse and inconvenience people who already
understood and got used to the difference between "diff" and
"log": diff takes two points, so given usual A..B notation it
uses A and B, while log is about a set and means 'the ones
reachable from B, excluding the ones reachable from A'; "A...B"
is magic and does a magical thing in both "diff" and "log",
taking the merge bases between A and B into account.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2006-12-22 10:26 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 45+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2006-12-21 12:24 Updated Kernel Hacker's guide to git Francis Moreau
2006-12-21 18:23 ` Linus Torvalds
2006-12-22 1:23 ` Carl Worth
2006-12-22 4:13 ` Linus Torvalds
2006-12-22 22:20 ` Carl Worth
2006-12-22 22:34 ` Linus Torvalds
2006-12-22 22:45 ` Junio C Hamano
2006-12-22 23:31 ` Carl Worth
2006-12-22 23:00 ` Jakub Narebski
2006-12-22 9:35 ` Francis Moreau
2006-12-22 10:26 ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2006-12-22 20:34 ` Francis Moreau
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2006-12-21 3:04 Jeff Garzik
2006-12-21 3:21 ` Jay Cliburn
2006-12-21 7:04 ` Martin Langhoff
2006-12-21 7:32 ` Junio C Hamano
2006-12-21 7:51 ` Linus Torvalds
2006-12-21 11:53 ` Jeff Garzik
2006-12-21 5:44 ` Willy Tarreau
2006-12-21 5:53 ` Nigel Cunningham
2006-12-21 11:44 ` Jeff Garzik
2006-12-21 21:17 ` Nigel Cunningham
2006-12-21 13:53 ` Francois Romieu
2006-12-21 20:40 ` Guennadi Liakhovetski
2006-12-21 20:46 ` Jeff Garzik
2006-12-22 8:50 ` Jesper Juhl
2006-12-24 18:07 ` Horst H. von Brand
2007-12-23 11:13 ` Jeff Garzik
2007-12-23 12:08 ` Robert P. J. Day
2007-12-23 12:13 ` Jeff Garzik
2007-12-23 12:20 ` Robert P. J. Day
2007-12-23 13:05 ` Dieter Ries
2007-12-23 17:23 ` Robert P. J. Day
2007-12-23 20:14 ` Stefan Richter
2007-12-24 14:19 ` Robert P. J. Day
2007-12-23 12:25 ` WANG Cong
2007-12-24 12:50 ` Miklos Vajna
2007-12-25 13:08 ` Salikh Zakirov
2007-12-31 2:50 ` Jan Engelhardt
2007-12-31 11:26 ` Stefan Richter
2007-12-31 17:31 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-06-30 2:51 ` Jeff Garzik
2008-06-30 6:27 ` Stefan Richter
2008-06-30 2:49 ` Jeff Garzik
2008-07-03 6:26 ` Christian Couder
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