Re: [RFC/PATCH] mergetool: use resolved conflicts in all the views

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 19, 2020, 00:53 UTC
Message-ID: <5fdd4f22c473b_1d952220844@natae.notmuch>
In-Reply-To: <20201219001358.GA153461@ellen>

Seth House wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 03:46:37AM -0600, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> > Yes, but the author of diffconflicts is not infallible.
> > 
> > Explain why the *users* of the diffconclits tool would be affected
> > negatively
> 
> You've got that right -- I'm definitely not infallible. My point isn't
> that I'm right; my point is that is my *preference*. Other mergetool
> authors may have different preferences.
> 
> I think where we're not seeing eye-to-eye is that you're focusing on
> potential "negative" consequences whereas I'm talking about having more
> information about the merge rather than less.

Yes, but it's not due to some unreasonable hankering; it comes from a deep philosophical reason, which is Karl Popper's falsifiability principle [1] that solves both the problems of induction and demarcation.

To put it plainly; if we want to know if all swans are white, where you claim the negative, and I the positive; it's much easier for you to prove the negative. All you need is *one* black swan.

Analogously in our case; all you need is *one* negative consequence to prove your point, while me providing one hundred success cases does not prove my point.

> There is very likely no negative consequences for most, if not all,
> mergetools.

Again: do you have *one* negative consequence that is present in tool a,
but not in tool b?

You say there is "very likely no negative consequences", but do you have evidence of *any* negative consequence?

> I wrote the initial version of diffconflicts ten years ago and I've
> been using it nearly every day since. I'm fairly confident in the end
> result. What is a fact is there is undisputedly less information about
> the merge if we overwrite LOCAL and REMOTE;

But it's objectively not useful information.

Edit your make-conflicts.sh script, and remove the first paragraph from poem.txt.

What happens when you run "git merge"?

Does it not complete the merge without *any* user interaction?

Doesn't that mean that git considers the changes in the second paragraph to be non-conflicts?

> This is where I will part this particular debate.

All right.

I'm still waiting for anyone to provide *one* example of a negative consequence.

Cheers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

-- 
Felipe Contreras