Re: [PATCH] pull: conflict hint pull.rebase suggestion should offer "merges" vs "true"

Note: I'm not talking about rebasing merges anymore in this thread,
but I thought there was a useful how-we're-communicating subthread
that's worth addressing to see if we can make that part work better...

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 9:17 AM Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

I knew you were on the CC, I just didn't believe at the time that you could have read that email and still claimed that "As for Dscho results specifically, I've got an impression that he never needed rebasing of merges in the first place", so I assumed you had skipped that email or only lightly skimmed it.

I'm still quite surprised, but clearly my assumption that you read the email was wrong. Sorry about that.

That exactly mirrors how I've felt about your emails in this thread. You are right that I'm not going into detail either...but why would I?

  * I'm not trying to convince you to implement these ideas or change
your own implementation, especially since:
  * You've previously said you aren't even planning on working on this[1].

Of course, you can easily ask why I would think you might provide details when I was not providing any. Well, from my viewpoint:

  * You did say you were hoping someone else would work on this
problem[1,2,& end of this email], and I've expressed interest in
working on the problem space.
  * If you want someone to work on your ideas, using your particular
favored approach, for free, then you need to convince them that your
approach is worth investing in
  * I have read the old proposals, in detail, and stated I don't
believe in them.
  * You didn't try to address my concerns beyond simply reasserting
that the ideas in the original proposals were good, and seemed to be
more interested in discrediting or minimizing my concerns (e.g. asking
why I "hated diffs from merge to either parent") than in learning
about or addressing them.

I think your intentions are good (you're trying to solve a big problem in Git), I'm just a little worried about the execution (e.g. brushing aside my concerns so folks won't pay attention to them while actively recruiting eager contributors, with the plan to send them down what I believe is a dead-end path). If it was just you going down this path, I wouldn't be so concerned. Personally, I pursue a *lot* of my own bad ideas, and learn in the process that they were bad. Also, if you showed some willingness to entertain that I might be right that the old proposals are bad, and could communicate that to new contributors and let them decide, I would have dropped out of the thread sooner and just let you do your thing.

The way you've responded in this thread doesn't seem unique to our interactions; it reminds me of an interaction you had with Junio at [3]. He suggested there were some code issues. You could have asked what they were and maybe learned how to improve things. Or maybe you could have learned that he just had a specific misunderstanding which could have been corrected if you asked some questions to find out what he was thinking. Instead, you simply asserted that things were fine and dismissed his concerns. I think it was a lost opportunity.

Now, it's fully possible here that I've misunderstood your purpose; if so, I apologize. The above was the understanding I was working off of; maybe knowing that will help you understand my responses.

[1] stated in final paragraph of https://lore.kernel.org/git/87zgkh9buq.fsf@osv.gnss.ru/ [2] hinted at in final paragraph of https://lore.kernel.org/git/87bklilnvp.fsf@osv.gnss.ru/ [3] https://lore.kernel.org/git/87wna3jwx8.fsf@osv.gnss.ru/

Correct, I'm not interested in implementing it that particular way, though I will be implementing it in what I feel is the right way.

Anyway, I hope something I said above helps in some way. Even if not, I wish you the best of luck on your efforts.