Re: [PATCH 3/4] push: make non-fast-forward help message configurable

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 7, 2009, 08:24 UTC
Message-ID: <20090907082430.GA17997@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20090907094457.6117@nanako3.lavabit.com>

On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 09:44:57AM +0900, Nanako Shiraishi wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> > Speaking of which, has anybody felt annoyed by this message?
> >
> >     $ git reset --hard HEAD^^
> >     HEAD is now at 3fb9d58 Do not scramble password read from .cvspass
> >
> > This is not "maybe you should try this", but I would consider that it
> > falls into the same "I see you are trying to be helpful, but I know what I
> > am doing, and you are stealing screen real estate from me without helping
> > me at all, thank you very much" category.
> 
> You may be fixated at the sha1 part of the message when you find this
> message annoying, but I disagree strongly. I always appreciate the
> assurance this message gives me that I counted the number of commits
> correctly, whether I say HEAD^^^^ or HEAD~7.

Let me add a "me too" to Nanako's comments. This assurance has actually saved me in the past from accidentally going to the wrong commit (just the other day I did a rebase followed by "git reset --hard HEAD@{1}", when of course what I meant was "git reset --hard master@{1}".

I think this type of message is different from the other "advice" messages.

In the case of the push non-fast-forward message and the status "here is how you stage" comments, those messages are not specific to this exact situation. They are general advice for "if you do not understand or need a reminder of how git works, this is it." Experienced users know how git works, so the messages are just clutter.

This message, on the other hand, tells you about this _specific_ instance. So even if you have mastered git, the information can reassure you that you have gone to the intended commit (and yes, I have actually gone to the wrong commit before, noticed it via this reset message, and corrected the situation).

So really they are two different conceptual types of message. And while I have no problem with an argument of "I _personally_ find this clutter and would like to configure it off", I don't think such an option should go under "advice.*". My patch had "message.all" (which will become "advice.all") to turn off all advice messages, which can act as a sort of "I am an expert" switch. But because this type of message is conceptually different, it should not be lumped in with the others.

OTOH, I am open to arguments against "advice.all"; maybe it is a good thing for users to manually say "this message is annoying me, and therefore I am now an expert in this particular area". It's not like there are more than two. ;)

-Peff