Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] diff-merges: introduce '-d' option

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 10:08:20 -0700

Sergey Organov <[email-masked]> writes:

> No need to ask for a new option, as the behavior you describe is already
> there, and is spelled "git log --diff-merges=first-parent"
> (--diff-merges=1 for short).

Ah, that changes things.  

Making "--diff-merges=<how>" only about the presentation of merge
commits, requiring a separate "-p" for single-parent commits [*],
does make the life for those in the "merges are the only interesting
things" camp a lot easier, exactly because the lack of "-p" can be
used to say "I am not interested in chanages by single-parent
commits".

	Side note: I personally think it is a design mistake of
	--diff-merges=<how> (e.g., --cc and --diff-merges=cc do not
	behave the same way) but that is a different story, and it
	is way too late now anyway to "fix" or change.

So "-d" that stands for "--diff-merges=first-parent -p" makes the
more useful (to those who think "merges are the only interesting
things", which I do not belong to) "--diff-merges=first-parent"
(without "-p") less useful.  And the combination is not useful for
those of us who find individual patches plus tweaks by merges
(either --cc or --remerge-diff) are the way to look at the history.

I still do not think that we want to give a short-and-sweet single
letter option for such a combination.

Thanks for clarification.