Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] pull --rebase: reinstate helpful message on abort

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2015 13:33:33 -0700

Johannes Schindelin <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hi Junio,
>
> On 2015-10-09 20:36, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Johannes Schindelin <[email-masked]> writes:
>> 
>>> When calling `git pull --rebase`, things can go wrong. In such a case,
>>> we want to tell the user about the most common ways out of this fix:
>>> ...
>>>  builtin/am.c | 1 +
>>>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
>> 
>> It is strange to see a patch to am that does not talk anything about
>> it, though.  And looking at the codepath, the issue does not have
>> much to do with "pull --rebase".  It doesn't even have much to do
>> with "rebase".  This is purely about "am -3" fallback codepath.
>
> I made it a habit of describing the big picture in commit messages,
> including the original motivation for the patch. Naturally, it is
> purely an implementation detail that the bug displayed by `git pull
> --rebase` is fixed by modifying `am.c`.

Yup, but that is "I happened to notice that bug first in a command
that uses another command that happens to use this buggy one".  That
may be interesting in the "peeing in the snow" sense, but not very
interesting in the big picture of ensuring the health of the entire
codebase.

The "common ways out of this" helpful message is not even coming
from "pull --rebase" or even "rebase" in the first place.  What you
are reinstating helpful message on abort is "am -3".

"This fixes am -3, hence incidentally fixes rebase and hence fixes
pull --rebase, too" would be the most useful way to describe this
change.  The initial report being about "pull --rebase" is of much
lessor importance, I would think.