Re: [PATCH 4/4] am: fix --interactive HEAD tree resolution

>
> Hi Peff,
>
> On Tue, 28 May 2019, Jeff King wrote:
>
> > On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 01:06:21PM +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> >
> > > > Or do you prefer having a one-liner? I'd rather come up with a more
> > > > generic helper to cover this case, that can run any command and compare
> > > > it to a single argument (or stdin). E.g.,:
> > > >
> > > >   test_cmp_cmd no-conflict git log -1 --format=%s
> > > >
> > > > or
> > > >
> > > >   test_cmp_cmd - git foo <<-\EOF
> > > >   multi-line
> > > >   expectation
> > > >   EOF
> > >
> > > I guess that you and me go into completely opposite directions here. I
> > > want something *less* general. Because I want to optimize for the
> > > unfortunate times when a test fails and most likely somebody else than the
> > > original author of the test case is tasked with figuring out what the heck
> > > goes wrong.
> > >
> > > You seem to want to optimize for writing test cases. Which I find -- with
> > > all due respect -- the wrong thing to optimize for. It is already dirt
> > > easy to write new test cases. But *good* test cases (i.e. easy to debug
> > > ones)? Not so much.
> >
> > Hmm. I too want the test output to be useful to people other than the
> > test author. But I find the output from test_cmp perfectly fine there.
> > My first step in digging into a failure is usually to look at what
> > commands the test is running, which generally makes it obvious why we
> > are expecting one thing and seeing another (or at least, just as obvious
> > as a hand-written message).
> >
> > So to me the two are equal on that front, which makes me want to go with
> > the thing that is shorter to write, as it makes it more likely the test
> > writer will write it. The _worst_ option IMHO is a straight-up use of
> > "test" which provides no output at all in the test log of what value we
> > _did_ see. That requires the person looking into the failure to re-run
> > the test, which is hard if it's a remote CI, or if the failure does not
> > always reproduce.
>
> If you think your version is easier to debug, then I won't object.
>
> Thanks,
> Dscho