From: Matthias Kestenholz <mk@spinlock.ch>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:04:00 GMT
Subject: Re: [kernel.org users] [RFD] On deprecating "git-foo" for builtins
Message-ID: <1f6632e50808260904t6bea0be5kc69342917e3db97@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <1219766398.7107.87.camel@pmac.infradead.org>

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 5:59 PM, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 11:34 -0400, Kristian Høgsberg wrote:
>> It's pretty normal to see opponents of a decision like this complain
>> loudly when it lands on their system, whereas the silent majority in
>> favour will be happy to see the change finally implemented but reluctant
>> to stir up the discussion again.
>>
>> I don't think new arguments are brought to the discussion, just new
>> people, who are temporarily inconvened by a change towards sanity.
>
> Nice emotive response, especially the subtle but unsubstantiated 'silent
> majority in favour' bit -- but you forgot the part where you were
> supposed to actually point out a tangible benefit which is achieved by
> breaking compatibility like this.
>
> And no, reducing the size of /usr/bin by a tiny fraction isn't really a
> worthwhile benefit -- in reality, the 'silent majority' really couldn't
> give a monkey's left testicle about that, and breakage caused by the
> gratuitous change _far_ outweighs any minuscule improvement.
>

Correct, but there is a benefit. Imagine a new user:

git-<tab><tab> ... what? 140-something commands? I'll better start looking
for alternatives _right now_!

Having a cluttered namespace is never a good thing. It means that it's
less obvious which commands you are supposed to use etc.