Re: What's in git.git (stable)

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Dec 14, 2006, 10:21 UTC
Message-ID: <7v7iwu93rv.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <200612140959.19209.andyparkins@gmail.com>

Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:

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> $ git commit
> Revision XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX successfully added.
>
> I'd actually argue that git-commit is a particular problem because it's too 
> fast.  You quit editing your commit message and bang, you're back at the 
> command line.  Then you run git-log to make sure it really was committed.

You keep repeating that you want to know the object name of the newly created commit. I would very strongly agree with you that it would be a fatal UI bug of git-commit if that information were vital for the end user after making each commit.

But you never communicate with your own git repository using the SHA-1 object names when talking about commits you made recently (you would have the SHA-1 output from your updated version of 'git commit' command on the screen or in your scrollbuffer for them -- you would need to refer to commits older than what your scrollbuffer has in different way anyway). Git gives branch~<n> notation, and commands like "git log --pretty=short" and friends would show them which you can easily cut&paste. When people talk about object names on the mailing list, they do so by asking "git log" and friends to find them out -- it is pretty much "on demand" type of thing and I do not think continually mentioning SHA-1 object names buys us anything.

In other words, the following transcript would be possible but not realistic:

	$ git commit
        Revision deadbeef0000 created.
        : now what did I do?
        $ git show deadbeef0000
        : oops, that is wrong
        $ git reset --hard deadbeef0000^

So I do not think "git commit" is a valid example. I also agree with Shawn that "git add" that says 6781 files were added is pointless.

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>> However, perhaps you could make lack of "[user] expert = true"
>> in ~/.gitconfig to trigger more verbose messages that say "yes
>> sir I did what I was told to do".
>
> I've always thought that programs that needed an expert/beginner split were 
> badly designed.

There probably is a truth in that. Let's not add verbosity unnecessarily.

I agree with you that making some commands with progress indication less chatty would be a good clean-up.