Re: [PATCH v2 0/7] making log --first-parent imply -m

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Aug 7, 2020, 08:26 UTC
Message-ID: <20200807082643.GA34012@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqpn86qb6a.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>

On Tue, Aug 04, 2020 at 03:49:17PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> > I'm just
> > raising the issue now because we'll be locked into the semantics of this
> > option, which may not be able to express the full set of what's possible
> > (so we'd be stuck adding another option later).
> 
> Yeah, but a good thing is that we won't have to worry about this
> until much later, as long as we would just be introducing "diff
> against no parents" and nothing else (or together with "diff against
> all parents", which would make it easier to explain "-m").

Agreed. My only question is whether the possibility of later having those other options might influence how we name the two options we add now. I think it's clear to all of us in this thread how those two easy options should behave, but if the intent is to eventually allow these to be mutually exclusive:

  - no diff
  - combined
  - dense combined
  - individual diff against each parent

but orthogonal to the selection of the parent-set (none, all, or selected ones) then e.g. "all" makes less sense for "individual diff against each parent". I don't have a good succinct name suggestion, though.

TBH, I would be happy enough with any of the suggestions in the thread, so I am really just finishing the thought here, and not trying to derail progress. :)

-Peff