Subject: Re: Trivial enhancement: All commands which require an author should accept --author

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2018 15:18:27 +0200

On Thu, Aug 30 2018, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> Hi Ævar,
>
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2018, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Aug 30 2018, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, 29 Aug 2018, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> >
>> >> Johannes Schindelin <[email-masked]> writes:
>> >>
>> >> > The `stash` command only incidentally requires that the author is set, as
>> >> > it calls `git commit` internally (which records the author). As stashes
>> >> > are intended to be local only, that author information was never meant to
>> >> > be a vital part of the `stash`.
>> >> >
>> >> > I could imagine that an even better enhancement request would ask for `git
>> >> > stash` to work even if `user.name` is not configured.
>> >>
>> >> This would make a good bite-sized microproject, worth marking it as
>> >> #leftoverbits unless somebody is already working on it ;-)
>> >
>> > Right.
>> >
>> > What is our currently-favored approach to this, again? Do we have a
>> > favorite wiki page to list those, or do we have a bug tracker for such
>> > mini-projects?
>> >
>> > Once I know, I will add this, with enough information to get anybody
>> > interested started.
>>
>> I believe the "official" way, such as it is, is you just put
>> #leftoverbits in your E-Mail, then search the list archives,
>> e.g. https://public-inbox.org/git/?q=%23leftoverbits
>>
>> So e.g. I've taken to putting this in my own E-Mails where I spot
>> something I'd like to note as a TODO that I (or someone else) could work
>> on later:
>> https://public-inbox.org/git/?q=%23leftoverbits+f%3Aavarab%40gmail.com
>
> That is a poor way to list the current micro-projects, as it is totally
> non-obvious to the casual interested person which projects are still
> relevant, and which ones have been addressed already.

I don't think this is ideal. To be clear and in reply to both yours and
Junio's E-Mail. I meant "official" in scare quotes in the least official
way possible.

I.e. that you need to search the mailing list archive if you want to see
what these #leftoverbits are, because the full set is stored nowhere
else.

> In a bug tracker, you can at least add a comment stating that something
> has been addressed, or made a lot easier by another topic.

Yeah, a bunch of things suck about it, although I will say at least for
notes I'm leaving for myself I'm using it in a way that I wouldn't
bother to use a bugtracker, so in many cases it's the difference between
offhandendly saying "oh b.t.w. we should fix xyz in way abc
#leftoverbits" and not having a bug at all, because filing a bug /
curating a tracker etc. is a lot more work.

> In a mailing list archive, those mails are immutable, and you cannot
> update squat.

In a lot of bugtrackers you can't update existing comments either, you
make a new one noting some new status. Similarly you can send a new mail
with the correct In-Reply-To.

That doesn't solve all the issues, but helps in many cases.