Re: [PATCH] fsck: do not print dangling objects by default

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 27, 2012, 19:29 UTC
Message-ID: <7vr4xg6pn2.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20120227191846.GB1600@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

>> Given that, isn't it not just sufficient but actually better to instead
>> add a new --no-dangling option and keep the default unchanged?
>
> ... Of course, it is fsck, so I wonder how often clueless people are
> really running it in the first place (i.e., it is not and should not be
> part of most users' typical workflows). If it is simply the case that
> they are being told to run "git fsck" by more expert users without
> understanding what it does, then I could buy the argument that those
> expert users could just as easily say "git fsck --no-dangling".

Yes, that was certainly part of my pros-and-cons analysis. If you run "git fsck" without "--no-dangling" without reading the manual, you may get confused, but that is *not* the primary audience. People who are curious can read the manual and figure it out, and the need for "fsck" is much rarer these days, compared to 2005 ;-)

In that context, only large downsides of potentially breaking and having to adjust existing scripts remains without much upsides, if we were to switch the default.