Re: [PATCH v5 0/2] bisect--helper: rewrite of check-term-format()

From: Pranit Bauva <pranit.bauva@gmail.com>
Date: May 8, 2016, 06:23 UTC
Message-ID: <CAFZEwPML8MCAL2quAN3ExMFXrhjS07g3KEC-WuSfYAXc2WQKuQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq60up1e24.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Pranit Bauva <pranit.bauva@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I completely missed your point and you want me to go the Eric Sunshine's way?
>
> I am neutral.
>
> When I read your response to Eric's "top down" suggestion, I didn't
> quite get much more than "I started going this way, and I do not
> want to change to the other direction.", which was what I had the
> most trouble with.  If your justification for the approach to start
> from building a tiny bottom layer that will need to be dismantled
> soon and repeat that (which sounds somewhat wasteful) were more
> convincing, I may have felt differently.

Sorry if it seemed that "I have done quite some work and I don't want to scrape it off and redo everything". This isn't a case for me. I think of this as just a small part in the process of learning and my efforts would be completely wasted as I can still reuse the methods I wrote. This is still open for a "philosophical" discussion. I am assuming 1e1ea69fa4e is how Eric is suggesting.

Why I think its better to go the subcommand way:
 * I can test **C implementation** of the function to verify whether
it was done in a proper way. By using a "top down" approach, I can
make the test suite passing by running the code from git-bisect.sh not
the re-written C code.
 * I have made a very few minor mistakes in conversion of
check_term_format() which just messed up my head (I actually spent 3
days before Christian pointed out that '!' was missing). Imagine
debugging the complete git-bisect.sh to find a very small error after
a complete implementation.
 * Using subcommands, I can easily verify whether I have done it the
right way or not.
 * It makes the review process very simple. The reviewers/testers can
verify that my method is working correctly and well computers can
detect errors better than humans.
 * I can convert small functions which can be reviewed easily rather
than dumping a big series.

What I think is that the bottom up approach will make life easier for the me and for reviewer. Yes, it does make the code "unclean" for the time being and if it is between releases then all the more painful. Well, the latter part can be avoided by keeping it in next.

Please point out if I am mistaken about anything.

Regards, Pranit Bauva