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Re: Command-line interface thoughts

From
Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date
Jun 10, 2011, 16:44 UTC
Message-ID
<201106101844.16146.jnareb@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<4DF0B4B2.7080007@ira.uka.de>
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, Holger Hellmuth wrote:
> On 08.06.2011 20:56, Jakub Narebski wrote:
[...]
Show 9 quoted lines
> >> But I can't make it explicit which two targets I want to compare with
> >> 'git diff'.
> >
> > For me it looks XY problem; instead of wanting to compare two explicit
> > targets, you should specify what you want to see ;-).
> 
> Then don't call the command 'diff' (... I proclaim in the knowledge that 
> that isn't possible). 'diff' is the short form of 'difference' which 
> means literally a comparison between *two* things.
Blame CVS (I think) on that.  It introduced no arguments "cvs diff" to
get current changes, and other version control systems picked this
convention up, including Git.
 
"diff" is 'are there any differences', or 'are there any changes'.
Implicit rules (targets) are very useful.
> If someone wants to 
> see something he would pick the words 'show' or 'list'. So user 
> expectation is different from what you want diff to be.
There is always "git status"...
Show 5 quoted lines
> Also there are no good words for what someone wants to see in this case. 
> At least I would assume the git project would have found them if they 
> existed. '--cached' is definitely not one of them. But we have fitting 
> and widely known names for the targets, i.e 'working tree', 'index' and 
> 'head'.

"I want to see if there are any remiaining changes", "I want to see what 'git commit' would bring", "I want to see what 'git commit -a' would bring". Neither of those is about targets for diff.

[...]
Show 9 quoted lines
> > The "git diff NEXT WTREE" looks like training wheels to me.  And like
> > training wheels they could become obstacles and not help to learning
> > git.  Neverthemind they can snag on sharp corners^W corner-cases. ;-)))
> 
> If your goal is that anyone who uses git is a git expert, they may be a 
> hindrance (as are all the porcelain commands really). If you also want 
> to make git friendly to people who will never get past intermediate or 
> beginner stage or will only use a small part of git or use git seldomly, 
> training wheels are good.

Those "training wheels" are useless for beginner, and might be not very useful to middle expert user either, depending on corner cases.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
Previous: Holger HellmuthNext: Holger Hellmuth
Message 28 of 98 in “Command-line interface thoughts”
  1. Michael NahasJun 4, 2011
  2. Jakub NarebskiJun 4, 2011
  3. Michael NahasJun 5, 2011
  4. Jakub NarebskiJun 5, 2011
  5. Scott ChaconJun 5, 2011
  6. Jakub NarebskiJun 5, 2011
  7. Junio C HamanoJun 6, 2011
  8. Michael J GruberJun 6, 2011
  9. Michael NahasJun 6, 2011
  10. Jakub NarebskiJun 6, 2011
  11. Michael J GruberJun 6, 2011
  12. Jakub NarebskiJun 8, 2011
  13. Junio C HamanoJun 6, 2011
  14. Drew NorthupJun 6, 2011
  15. Junio C HamanoJun 6, 2011
  16. Michael J GruberJun 6, 2011
  17. Junio C HamanoJun 6, 2011
  18. Scott ChaconJun 6, 2011
  19. Junio C HamanoJun 6, 2011
  20. Michael J GruberJun 7, 2011
  21. Jonathan NiederJun 7, 2011
  22. Holger HellmuthJun 7, 2011
  23. Jonathan NiederJun 7, 2011
  24. Jakub NarebskiJun 7, 2011
  25. Holger HellmuthJun 8, 2011
  26. Jakub NarebskiJun 8, 2011
  27. Holger HellmuthJun 9, 2011
  28. Jakub NarebskiJun 10, 2011
  29. Holger HellmuthJun 10, 2011
  30. Jakub NarebskiJun 10, 2011
  31. Holger HellmuthJun 10, 2011
  32. git diff --added (Re: Command-line interface thoughts)Jonathan Nieder, Jun 13, 2011
  33. Miles BaderJun 13, 2011
  34. Miles BaderJun 13, 2011
  35. Jonathan NiederJun 13, 2011
  36. Junio C HamanoJun 13, 2011
  37. Junio C HamanoJun 13, 2011
  38. Holger HellmuthJun 13, 2011
  39. Michael NahasJun 13, 2011
  40. Jakub NarebskiJun 13, 2011
  41. Holger HellmuthJun 13, 2011
  42. Michael HaggertyJun 14, 2011
  43. Jakub NarebskiJun 14, 2011
  44. René ScharfeJun 7, 2011
  45. Jakub NarebskiJun 7, 2011
  46. Jakub NarebskiJun 8, 2011
  47. Michael NahasJun 8, 2011
  48. Jakub NarebskiJun 8, 2011
  49. Michael NahasJun 8, 2011
  50. Jeff KingJun 8, 2011
  51. Michael NahasJun 8, 2011
  52. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  53. Michael NahasJun 9, 2011
  54. Jakub NarebskiJun 10, 2011
  55. Jakub NarebskiJun 9, 2011
  56. Michael NahasJun 9, 2011
  57. Jakub NarebskiJun 9, 2011
  58. Jakub NarebskiJun 9, 2011
  59. Michael HaggertyJun 9, 2011
  60. Andreas EricssonJun 9, 2011
  61. Thomas RastJun 9, 2011
  62. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  63. Jay SoffianJun 9, 2011
  64. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  65. Junio C HamanoJun 9, 2011
  66. Jay SoffianJun 9, 2011
  67. Junio C HamanoJun 9, 2011
  68. Michael HaggertyJun 9, 2011
  69. Junio C HamanoJun 9, 2011
  70. Michael HaggertyJun 9, 2011
  71. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  72. Michael HaggertyJun 9, 2011
  73. Jakub NarebskiJun 9, 2011
  74. Michael HaggertyJun 9, 2011
  75. Jakub NarebskiJun 10, 2011
  76. Michael NahasJun 10, 2011
  77. Jakub NarebskiJun 10, 2011
  78. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  79. Michael NahasJun 9, 2011
  80. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  81. Jakub NarebskiJun 9, 2011
  82. Michael NahasJun 10, 2011
  83. Jeff KingJun 10, 2011
  84. Junio C HamanoJun 10, 2011
  85. Junio C HamanoJun 10, 2011
  86. Jakub NarebskiJun 10, 2011
  87. Michael HaggertyJun 12, 2011
  88. Junio C HamanoJun 12, 2011
  89. Michael NahasJun 12, 2011
  90. Junio C HamanoJun 12, 2011
  91. Michael NahasJun 13, 2011
  92. Jeff KingJun 13, 2011
  93. Jeff KingJun 9, 2011
  94. Paul EbermannJun 5, 2011
  95. Paul EbermannJun 5, 2011
  96. Michael NahasJun 7, 2011
  97. Junio C HamanoJun 7, 2011
  98. Michael NahasJun 7, 2011

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