Re: [PATCH 0/4] Re: [PATCH 3/4] t: rev-parse-parents: avoid yoda conditions

> On Wed, Sep 04, 2013 at 10:38:03AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> >> This is way off tangent, but I am somewhat sympathetic to Felipe's
>> >> "compare actual with expect", with reservations.
>> >
>> > This isn't an argument either way, but note that JUnit (and NUnit and
>> > PHPUnit) all have assertEquals methods that take the arguments in the
>> > order "expect, actual".  I've always assumed that Git's test framework
>> > was imitating that,...
>>
>> No.  See 82ebb0b6 (add test_cmp function for test scripts,
>> 2008-03-12).  The "test_cmp" was a replacement for "diff -u", and
>> the same order we fed "diff -u", i.e. expect then actual, was
>> carried over.
>
> I don't think it was intentional at the time. But over the intervening 5
> years, I have noticed that I certainly think of "test_cmp A B" as
> "differences from A to B", and the order makes sense. IOW, the "test_cmp
> is diff" abstraction is leaky, and that is fine (if it were not leaky,
> then order would not matter at all, but it clearly does).
>
> But let's take a step back. This seems like an endian-ness issue to me.
> I.e., some people prefer one order for test assertions, and other people
> prefer the other. Is anyone actually right, or is this simply a matter
> of preference? And if it is simply a matter of preference, then why
> bother going through the pain of changing the current project standard?
>
> Though I prefer the current, I can certainly live and adapt to a changed
> standard, and I do not mind doing so if there is a good reason. But I've
> yet to see any argument beyond "it is not what I like". Which to me
> argues for the status quo as the path of least resistance.