Re: [PATCH v2] rev-list docs: clarify --topo-order description

From: Thomas Rast <trast@student.ethz.ch>
Date: Aug 16, 2012, 08:51 UTC
Message-ID: <87pq6rw77l.fsf@thomas.inf.ethz.ch>
In-Reply-To: <7vehn72vyl.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
>
>> We could remove it if you find it confusing.
>>
>> I think the original motivation that line was added was to help
>> people who see "git log" (without any frills) output for the first
>> time not to be alarmed when they see newer things first: "In
>> general, the "time" flows from bottom to top", but the "time" in
>> that sentence is not necessarily the timestamp of either committer
>> nor author field.
>
> Just to clarify, I am not defending the current wording that I did
> not touch in my patch with the above.  I am just giving historical
> background to help _other_ people (including you) to come up with a
> better wording, as I do not think of a better replacement myself.

I tend to agree with Martin, the existing header for the list

>>>  By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order.

is misleading. I suppose the real problem is that the "true" ordering is completely obvious as the one ordering that does not require preprocessing, but ugly to specify in words. Perhaps we can bikeshed a little? How about

  By default, commits are shown in an order that coincides with
  `--date-order` on well-behaved history, but is faster to compute.

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch