Subject: Re: What's cooking in git.git (Oct 2023, #01; Mon, 2)

From: Sergey Organov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2023 14:18:00 +0300

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> Sergey Organov <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:
>>
>>> Sergey Organov <[email-masked]> writes:
>>>
>>>> I believe I've addressed this in details in my reply here:
>>>> <[email-masked]>, and got no further objections from you
>>>> since then, so I figure I'd ask to finally let the patch in.
>>>
>>> You need to know that no response does not mean no objection.  You
>>> repeated why the less useful combination is what you want, but that
>>> does not mean the combination deserves to squat on short-and-sweet
>>> 'd' and prevent others from coming up with a better use for it.
>>
>> Yep, but I've asked what's better use for -d than "get me diff"? Do you
>> really have an idea?
>
> The primary point is to leave it open for future developers.

Well, I'm not actually convinced it's justified in this particular case,
but I'll re-roll with another option name, even though I suspect this
will leave short-and-sweet '-d' unused for yet another 18 years.

Just for better understanding: does it mean that *any* addition of
one-letter option is prohibited from any existing Git command? Cause it
definitely sounds this way.

And while we are at it, is it allowed to have "long" one-letter options,
e.g., "--d"?

>
> If I have to pick a candidate for "get me diff" that is the most
> useful among those currently are available, it is "give patches to
> all single-parent commit, and show tricky conflict resolution part
> only for merge commits".

I'm afraid you need to pick a candidate that will be natural for '-d',
not just most useful output for your workflows, whatever it happens to
be.

> Before "--remerge-diff" was invented, my answer would have been "give
> patches to all single-parent commit, and show combined diff in the
> compact form for merge commits", aka "git log --cc".

And this is already there as well, or do you suggest

-d == --remerge-diff ?
-d == --cc ?

> Even though we did not know if a better output presentation for merge
> commits would be coming, we did not let it squat on any
> short-and-sweet single letter synonym.

Except -m and -c, and when "better" actually came where "better" means
basic functionality that should *better* have been there from the very
beginning, you argue against it.

And then, as in your view diff is not the best presentation for merge
commits, the best will have nothing to do with diff anyway, and so won't
be using '-d' with 99.99% probability.

Then, hopefully, somebody sometime will agree that we can finally use -d
for what it fits best: diff, plain old simple diff.

Overall, please expect a re-roll with another option name.

Thanks,
-- Sergey Organov