Re: [PATCH 3/3] advice: allow disabling the automatic hint in advise_if_enabled()

> On Tue, Jan 09, 2024 at 04:30:16PM +0100, Rubén Justo wrote:
> 
> > Using advise_if_enabled() to display an advice will automatically
> > include instructions on how to disable the advice, along with the
> > main advice:
> > 
> > 	hint: use --reapply-cherry-picks to include skipped commits
> > 	hint: Disable this message with "git config advice.skippedCherryPicks false"
> > 
> > This can become distracting or noisy over time, while the user may
> > still want to receive the main advice.
> > 
> > Let's have a switch to allow disabling this automatic advice.
> 
> If I'm reading your patch correctly, this is a single option that
> controls the extra line for _all_ advice messages. But I'd have expected
> this to be something you'd want to set on a per-message basis. Here's my
> thinking.
> 
> The original idea for advice messages was that they might be verbose and
> annoying, but if you had one that showed up a lot you'd choose to shut
> it up individually. But you wouldn't do so for _all_ messages, because
> you might benefit from seeing others (including new ones that get
> added). The "Disable this..." part was added later to help you easily
> know which config option to tweak.
> 
> The expectation was that you'd fall into one of two categories:
> 
>   1. You don't see the message often enough to care, so you do nothing.
> 
>   2. You do find it annoying, so you disable this instance.
> 
> Your series proposes a third state:
> 
>   3. You find the actual hint useful, but the verbosity of "how to shut
>      it up" is too much for you.
> 
> That make sense to me, along with being able to partially shut-up a
> message. But wouldn't you still need the "how to shut up" hint for
> _other_ messages, since it's customized for each situation?
> 
> E.g., suppose that after getting annoyed at advice.skippedCherryPicks,
> you run "git config advice.adviseOff false".
> 
> But now you run into another hint, like:
> 
>   $ git foo
>   hint: you can use --empty-commits to deal with isn't as good as --xyzzy
> 
> and you want to disable it entirely. Which advice.* config option does
> so? You're stuck trying to find it in the manpage (which is tedious but
> also kind of tricky since you're now guessing which name goes with which
> message). You probably do want:
> 
>   hint: Disable this message with "git config advice.xyzzy false"
> 
> in that case (at which point you may decide to silence it completely or
> partially).
> 
> Which implies to me that the value of advice.* should be a tri-state to
> match the cases above: true, false, or a "minimal" / "quiet" mode (there
> might be a better name). And then you'd do:
> 
>   git config advice.skippedCherryPicks minimal
> 
> (or whatever it is called) to get the mode you want, without affecting
> advice.xyzzy.

> 
> >  advice.c          | 3 ++-
> >  advice.h          | 3 ++-
> >  t/t0018-advice.sh | 8 ++++++++
> >  3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> Speaking of manpages, we'd presumably need an update to
> Documentation/config/advice.txt. :)