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Re: Command-line interface thoughts

From
Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>
Date
Jun 9, 2011, 23:02 UTC
Message-ID
<4DF150FB.9070304@alum.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To
<201106100004.58040.jnareb@gmail.com>
On 06/10/2011 12:04 AM, Jakub Narebski wrote:
Show 22 quoted lines
> On Thu, 9 Jan 2011, Michael Haggerty wrote:
>> On 06/09/2011 10:04 PM, Jeff King wrote:
>>> I'm less sure about these new tokens, for a few reasons:
>>>
>>>   1. You get less useful answers in some situations by treating each
>>>      stage as a separate tree (e.g., lack of combined diff). So why
>>>      would I want to use them?
>>
>> Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do a combined diff between *any* two
>> trees?  Then the nonuniform merge behavior of "git diff" would be a
>> special case of a general concept:
>>
>>     git diff3 OURS NEXT THEIRS
>                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -- ???
> 
> First, it is unnecessary power, unnecessary complication.  WTF. you are
> doing comparing _abitrary_ trees?
> 
> Second, for files with merge conflicts "git diff" is the same as
> "git diff3 OURS THEIRS WTREE", not "git diff3 OURS NEXT THEIRS".
> As you can see it is very easy to construct wrong options to git-diff,
> and end up with nonsense!

Since there is currently no "git diff3" command, I decided to orient the hypothetical "git diff3" command based on diff3(1), which uses

    diff3 [OPTION]... MYFILE OLDFILE YOURFILE

By using a new command (diff3) that is somewhat familiar to some users, we could reduce the amount of overloading of "git diff". I, for one, was surprised and confused the first few times I typed "git diff" during a merge and got a three-way diff rather than what I expected, namely the two-way diff that is called "git diff NEXT WTREE" in the proposed notation.

Show 5 quoted lines
> I won't repear the THIRD time simple and around *three times shorter*
> explanation on _when_ to use which form: "git diff" for your own remaining
> changes that can be "git add"-ef, "git diff --staged" for which changes
> are staged i.e. what you have "git add"-ed, and "git diff HEAD" to compare
> current with last.

You don't need to repeat for my benefit the existing version of the commands; I knew them long before this discussion started. And repeating them does not make them more obvious.

For a beginner, the main goal is not brevity. It is discoverability and memorability. Obviously our priorities and tastes differ and we will not come to agreement. I would be very interested what people with a fresh memory of struggling to learn the git CLI think would have been easier to learn.

Michael
-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/
Previous: Jakub NarebskiNext: Jakub Narebski
Message 74 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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