Re: [PATCH] Reformat "your branch has diverged..." lines to reduce line length.

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 16, 2008, 22:03 UTC
Message-ID: <7v3am9pjvf.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <32541b130807161327k17f3a58ay5ab2da75963a2d50@mail.gmail.com>

"Avery Pennarun" <apenwarr@gmail.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

>>         Your branch is ahead of 'origin/add-chickens2' by 21 commits.
>>
>>         Your branch is behind 'origin/add-chickens2' by 1 commit.
>>
>>         Your branch and 'origin/add-chickens2' have diverged, and have
>>         21 and 1 different commit(s) each, respectively.
>>
>>  I moved "respectively" so that the variable parts will come close to the
>>  beginning of physical line.
>
> Well, the fact that the number of commits is "variable" isn't so
> important, unless you start diverging by 1e9 commits or something :)

No, no, no. The point is not about keeping it on screen when "less -S" chops at the right end. The point is to limit eye-movement of the user; i.e. presenting important information consistently at around the same column, closer to the left edge. Probably the line break should be before "and have" to make it even easier to read.

>>         Your branch and 'origin/add-chickens2' have diverged,
>>         and have 21 and 1 different commit(s) each, respectively.

> Alternatively, your rephrasing above made me think of the idea of just
> printing *both* of the first two messages in the "diverging" case.

I do not think it is such a good idea --- we invite silly comments like "You say X is ahead of Y, and X is behind of Y, which is true?".

> Please let me know if you want me to resubmit the patch with your
> suggestions or whether you'll handle it.  I'm still a little vague on
> the exact patch approval process.

It is very much more "consensus building" than "approval", and at this point we wait for a day or two to see if people come up with even better alternatives. Just be kind enough to prod me if I forget after a few days, though ;-)