Re: Git's inconsistent command line options

> On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 2:49 PM, Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 8:13 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 1:01 AM, Graeme Geldenhuys <graemeg@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Even though I have worked with Git since 2009, I still have to
>>>> reference the help to remind me of what parameter to use in certain
>>>> situation simply because similar tasks differ so much.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe we could address this in the next major version of Git? Has
>>>> anybody else thought about this or started work on this? Or was this
>>>> discussed before and declined (link?).
>>>
>>> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/231478 comes to mind,
>>> which has been linked from this entry:
>>>
>>> Discuss and decide if we want to choose between the "mode word" UI
>>> (e.g. "git submodule add") and the "mode option" UI (e.g. "git tag --delete")
>>> and standardise on one; if it turns out to be a good idea, devise the migration
>>> plan to break the backward-compatibility.
>>>
>>> in http://git-blame.blogspot.com/p/leftover-bits.html
>>
>> I would vote for command words, as this is clean and simple.
>
> me too after rereading the arguments in that thread.
>
>> The
>> downside is in converting all the old options based commands, git-tag,
>> and similar. These commands cannot easily convert because "valid"
>> sequences would become invalid with no easy way to deprecate for
>> example in the linked gmane above, "git tag delete master" can't be a
>> call to delete master as it is currently a call to create a tag
>> "delete" at the commit marked by master.
>
> git-tag being a porcelain command (i.e. we do not give a promise to keep
> it set to stone) can be changed with a deprecation announcement period.
> Say starting with Git 2.6 we would put out warnings for upcoming commands:
>
>  $ git tag --delete master
>  $ echo $?
>  # 0 # actually works as of today!
>
>  $ git tag delete master
>  #  Due to the planned switch to command words, this doesn't work.
>  #  For details see road map at  `man git commandwords-roadmaps`
>  $ echo $?
>  # 128 maybe ?
>
> $ git tag create delete
>
> And after a while (maybe 3-5 years, once this version is picked up by
> debian stable as well as red hat stable)
> we can change it, so with Git 3.4(?)
>
>  $ git tag --delete master
>  # --delete is deprecated since 3.4, use `git tag delete` instead
>  $ echo $?
>  # 128
>
>  $ git tag delete master
>  # --delete is deprecated since 2.6, use `git tag delete` instead
>  $ echo $?
>  # 0 # actually works!
>