Re: [PATCH 0/8] Add 'ls-files --json' to dump the index in json

>
> Hi Duy,
>
> On Fri, 21 Jun 2019, Duy Nguyen wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 8:16 PM Johannes Schindelin
> > <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> > > > I think your warning in the manpage that this is for debugging is fine,
> > > > as it does not put us on the hook for maintaining the feature nor its
> > > > format forever. We might want to call it "--debug=json" or something,
> > > > though, in case we do want real stable json support later (though of
> > > > course we would be free to steal the option then, since we're making no
> > > > promises).
> > >
> > > Traditionally, we have not catered well to 3rd-party applications in Git,
> > > and this JSON format would provide a way out of that problem.
> > >
> > > So I would like *not* to lock the door on letting this feature stabilize
> > > organically.
> > >
> > > I'd be much more in favor of `--json[=<version>]`, with an initial version
> > > of 0 to indicate that it really is unstable for now.
> >
> > Considering the amount of code to output these, supporting multiple
> > formats would be a nightmare. I may be ok with versioning the output
> > so the tool know what format they need to deal with, but I'd rather
> > support just one version.
>
> Once the format stabilized, I don't think it would be a huge burden to
> support multiple formats, if we ever had to update.
>
> It would, however, be a huge burden on third-party applications. In
> effect, we could be lazy, but we would put a lot more burden on others
> than we saved ourselves, so that would be a bit... selfish.