Subject: Re: [GSoC PATCH v6 0/3] graph: add --graph-lane-limit option

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:55:47 -0700

Pablo <[email-masked]> writes:

> About other ways to draw it, I actually like yours, other way I can
> think of is to make a hard separation row something like
>
>>     * a child of the root commit below
>>     * one of the root commits
>        ---
>>     * an unrelated commit X
>>     * the parent of X
>>     * the other root commit that is a grandparent of X

Yes, this is rather an easy way out and its variants have been
attempted over the years for a few times, I think.  Marking a root
commit differently from others, like the hard break line immediately
below it, drawing it with something other than '*', or painting '*'
in red---any of these approaches will let you tell that the commit
does not have a parent-child relationship with the commit that
appears on the next line.

But the reason why the user asks for "--graph" is because they want
to see the parent-child relashionships in the graph layout itself by
laying commits out on the 2-D plane, and drawing the root so
differently from others is failing that task.