Re: [PATCH 3/5] setup_revisions: remember whether a ref was positive or not

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 8, 2011, 23:17 UTC
Message-ID: <7vy5z3trwu.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CAGdFq_ioxeZUCnn-fFKuiT-6eVzVoph8eQE2j0hEbAxtDZzGnQ@mail.gmail.com>

Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com> writes:

> Because no actual users are actually having this problem (e.g., at
> times typing "git diff ^C A B" and are seriously troubled by it), or
> at least haven't spoken up? Or do you meant that you are that user?

Yes, I am that user who have been disturbed by the command line revision parser limitation for a loooooooong time and have been wanting to see it properly fixed for quite a while (by myself or by somebody else).

Otherwise why would I have bothered to spend 93 lines to describe it and its one possible solution that I _think_ is general enough to cover both of the real issue identified in this thread?

I may probably be being slightly unfair, for two reasons. The primary reason is because the affected codepath is so central to the UI that fixing this properly is more important than various random tweaks we make in other areas (which makes me particularly picky with respect to ensuring that the future expansion would be easy). Seeing a single-bit "hack" not from a complete newbie but from two known-to-be-competent long timers of Git is another.

There are numerous hacks that try to work around the same revision parser limitation (lossage of information), and I have been hoping that a series that touch the parser to leave more information during parsing to be cleanly enhancible to get rid of them (e.g. "git checkout $commit" vs "git checkout $branch" looks at the command line itself, but it should be able to call into the revision parser and inspect what the parser gives it back).