Re: [PATCH 6/6] diff-merges: let -m imply -p

From: Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com>
Date: May 11, 2021, 14:03 UTC
Message-ID: <87v97pv04p.fsf@osv.gnss.ru>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqo8dhool7.fsf@gitster.g>

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

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

[...]

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> If we enable "some kind of diff" for "-m", I actually think that by
> default "git log -m" should be turned into "log --cc".  As you told
> Alex in your response, "log -m -p" is a quite unpleasant format to
> read---it is there only because it was the only thing we had before
> we invented "-c/--cc".

Please, no! --cc has unfortunate feature of outputting exactly nothing for a lot of merge commits, causing even more confusion than historical "-m -p" format.

The best default for -m output is --diff-merges=first-parent. Everybody is familiar with it, and it's useful.

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> But that might be outside the scope of this series.  I dunno, but if
> there is no other constraints (like backward compatibility issues),
> I have a moderately strong preference to use "--cc" over "-m -p"
> from the get go for unconfigured people, rather than forcing
> everybody to configure

I rather have strong preference for --diff-merges=first-parent. --cc is only suitable for Git experts, and they know how to get what they want anyway. Yep, by using --cc. Why spare yet another short option for that?

Overall, let's rather make -m give diff to the first parent by default. Simple. Useful. Not confusing.

Thanks, -- Sergey Organov