From: Thomas Rast Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 08:09:32 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] commit: Add -f, --fixes option to add Fixes: line Message-ID: <874n83m8xv.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net> In-Reply-To: <20131027071407.GA11683@leaf> Josh Triplett writes: > On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 06:42:44AM +0100, Michael Haggerty wrote: >> But I don't think that this feature should be given the "-f" short >> option, as (a) -f often means "force"; (b) it will increase the >> confusion with --fixup; (c) it just doesn't strike me as being likely to >> be such a frequently-used option (though if this changes over time the >> "-f" option could always be granted to it later). > > (a) -n often means --dry-run, but for commit it means --no-verify. > Different commands have different options, and commit doesn't have a > --force to abbreviate as -f. > > (b) If anything, I think the existence of a short option will make the > distinction more obvious, since -f and --fixup are much less similar > than --fixes and --fixup. Most users will never type --fixes, making > confusion unlikely. > > (c) Short option letters tend to be first-come first-serve unless > there's a strong reason to do otherwise. Why reserve 'f' for some > hypothetical future option that doesn't exist yet? No, lately the direction in Git has been to avoid giving options a one-letter shorthand until they have proven so useful that people using it in the wild start to suggest that it should have one. See e.g. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/233998 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/168748 A much better argument would be if it was already clear from the specs laid out for Fixes that n% of the kernel commits will end up having this footer, and thus kernel hackers will spend x amount of time spelling out --fixes and/or confusing it with --fixup to much headache. -- Thomas Rast tr@thomasrast.ch