Subject: Re: [PATCH] diff: add --no-indicators option

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:03:06 +0900

Harald Nordgren <[email-masked]> writes:

> Maybe I missed your point about GNU or BSD, could you explain more about that?

When I talk/think about what "git diff" should and should not do, I
remind myself that not many things under the sun are truly novel.
After all, long before Git was invented, people had used "diff" to
compare old and new versions of the same thing to extract the
differences.  When proposing a new feature X in "git diff", it would
support the idea very well if these implementations of "diff" that
way predates Git itself has a simliar feature already.  On the other
hand, if the vanilla "diff" used outside the context of Git lack
such feature X, it is more likely that X is an ill-thought-out
misfeature that they didn't want, than people who have been working
on these implementations of "diff" (not "git diff", but GNU or BSD
or others) were dumb enough that they did not think of the feature X
themselves.

That was why I asked if there are precedents, either in GNU or BSD
implementations of "diff".