Re: [PATCH v2 1/8] Add new git-cc-cmd helper to contrib

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 19, 2013, 19:24 UTC
Message-ID: <7v8v4e1fyz.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CAMP44s3YAq66MrOR5a4ydujKR5+ZNMVV4i=JzPCxLXC244b52g@mail.gmail.com>

Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:
>>> The code finds the changes of a commit, runs 'git blame' for each chunk
>>> to see which other commits are relevant, and then reports the author and
>>> signers.
>>
>> In general, I am not all that interested in adding anything new to
>> contrib/ as git.git has matured enough, but even if this will stay
>> outside my tree, there are a few interesting things to note to help
>> its eventual users.
>
> Why not add it to mainline git then? This tool, or a similar one,
> would certainly be useful in the git arsenal.

As to this particular "feature" (the goal it tries to achieve, not necessarily the implementation), that actually was the first thing that came to my mind. It helps the "develop, review locally, format-patch, decide whom to ask reviews and then send it out" workflow in general to have a tool that tells you who are the people involved in the code you are touching.

If this were _only_ to be used within send-email (i.e. replacing the "then send it out" above with "then use send-email" to limit the usecase), "git cc-cmd" would be a reasonable name. But if that is the intended use case, it would even be more reasonable to make this logic part of send-email and trigger it with --auto-cc-reviewers option or something.

But I think it can be useful outside the context of send-email as well, and having one independent tool that does one single job well is a better design. Perhaps it is better to name it less specific to send-email's cc-cmd option. "git people"? "git whom"? "git reviewers"? I dunno, but along those lines.

It is OK for a design demonstration prototype to be written in any language others (who can comment on the design) can read, but the version to be a first-class citizen needs to be written in one of the languages such as C, POSIX shell, or Perl to avoid adding extra dependencies to the users.