Re: [PATCH 2/2] mergetool-lib: add a three-way diff view for vim/gvim

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 24, 2010, 21:31 UTC
Message-ID: <20100924213116.GA19676@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTin-BSAFwvuTyJ96BW6MqrKVEni+Af2M0u7WE_yZ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 02:01:01PM -0500, Dan McGee wrote:

Show 41 quoted lines

> On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 4:48 AM, Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 10:34 AM, David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 09:21:43PM -0500, Dan McGee wrote:
> >>> When the base version is available, use a three-way, four panel view by
> >>> default. This shows the (local, base, remote) revisions up top and the
> >>> merged result by itself in the lower pane. All revisions will still scroll
> >>> together by default, and the cursor still defaults to the merged result edit
> >>> pane.
> >>>
> >>> Signed-off-by: Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com>
> >>> ---
> >>>
> >>> Vim was one of the few diff commands to not support a three-way merge showing
> >>> the base revision, so this is a stab at resolving that shortfall. The biggest
> >>> objection I can see to this is making the interface a bit more cumbersome and
> >>> bloated.
> >>>
> >>> An example screenshot of what this produces:
> >>> http://www.toofishes.net/media/extra/vim_three_way.png
> >>>
> >>> -Dan
> >>
> >>
> >> Patch 1/2 of this series looks good to me.
> >>
> >> Is it worth keeping the old behavior and calling this new
> >> mode "vimdiff3" or something along those lines?
> >>
> >> I'm not a vimdiff user so I'm not be the best person to
> >> judge the merits of this change.  I like what it's trying
> >> to accomplish, though.  Are there any vimdiff users
> >> with strong feelings either way?
> >
> > I think this is a definite improvement; the old mode wasn't really
> > useful for me.
> 
> Not as much feedback as I had hoped, but thanks to those that did
> speak up. I was thinking of adding a separate mode, but I think it
> would then get under-used and as I said, every other merge tool was
> already doing this anyway.

A little more feedback:

I use vim but don't use vimdiff, because the original mode seemed useless to me. Your change makes it much better. I haven't actually had to do any merging lately, though, so I can't comment in practice.

Given that nobody has objected, you have a few comments in support, and the fact that it makes it similar to every other mergetool driver, I think it should probably be the default. If somebody really finds it objectionable, it is not hard for them to configure the old behavior.

-Peff