Re: [PATCH 1/2] transport-helper: report errors properly

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 11, 2013, 21:21 UTC
Message-ID: <CAMP44s2QJJnSRVVJscLsTnXk5zdGbA2utefF5SO7=90+ttENew@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vfvywj4au.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 1:44 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

> Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

>>> In the long run, it may make more sense to propagate the
>>> error back up to push, so that it can present the usual
>>> status table and give a nicer message. But this is a much
>>> simpler fix that can help immediately.
>>
>> Yes it might, and it might make sense to rewrite much of this code,
>> but that's not relevant.
>
> It is a good reminder for people who later inspect this part of the
> code and wonder if it was a conscious design choice not to propagate
> the error or just being "simple and sufficient for now", I think.
> It would help them by making it clear that it is the latter, no?

No. Design choices is what code comments are for, of which Git only has too few, according to ohloh[1]. No wonder they are so few, people are spending time writing novels on commit messages and forgetting there's also code where you should clarify things.

Show 6 quoted lines

>> ... I think it might
>> be possible enforce remote-helpers to implement the "done" feature,
>> and we might want to do that later.
>
> Yes, all these are possible and I think writing it down explicitly
> will serve as a reminder for our future selves, I think.

Yes, but not writing them here. By spending so much time in commit messages you neglect the code, and the wiki (which is actually the place to write these things on.

And if all you want is to write them down, we already did, right here. There's no need to punish the readers of the commit messages in the future only so we can flex our memory, because we already did.

And if you must, you might was well label them with "REMINDER", no, wait, that's what "TODO" comments are for, where people can see them, and not *forget* them.

Cheers.

[1] https://www.ohloh.net/p/git/factoids#FactoidCommentsLow

-- Felipe Contreras