Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: set --abbrev=9 to match auto-scaling

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2016 14:24:57 -0800

Ramsay Jones <[email-masked]> writes:

> As I said, the original version of the patch just removed the
> --abbrev=7, but then I started to think about why you might have
> used --abbrev in the first place (first in commit 9b88fcef7 and
> again in commit bf505158d). Making sure to override the configuration
> was the only thing I could come up with. So, I was hoping you could
> remember why! :-P

Nope.  As a maintainer support script, the only thing I cared about
it is that there is no -gXXXX at the end for anything I release ;-)

> (I assumed it was to force a measure of uniformity/reproducibility).

You cannot force uniformity/reproducibility with fixed abbrev,
unless you set abbreviation length to 40, so you are correct to add
"a measure of" there ;-) The first choice (i.e. 4) may have had a
justification to force absolute minimum, and the second one (i.e. 7)
may have had a justifiation to make it clear that we are using the
same setting as the default, so in post-1.7.10 era, I think it is
fine for us to just say "we have been using the same as default, so
let's not specify anything explicitly".