From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:59:39 GMT
Subject: Re: Something wrong with pickaxe?
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0601181855570.3240@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vwtgxlysf.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>



On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
> You are so polite to say "non-intuitive" when you mean
> "useless".

No, no. I could imagine that it's useful, but I end up always instead 
doing "git whatchanged | less" and searching for it. 

So I really mean that the semantics are so non-intuitive that I just can't 
use it, rather than totally useless.

> For example, after I start debugging or code change, if I
> suspect the first "if (!nr_match) return;" is bogus in
> filter_refs() of fetch-pack.c, before declaring that code is
> bogus and start butchering it, I run something like this:
> 
> $ git whatchanged -p -S'static void filter_refs(struct ref **refs, int nr_match, char **match)
> {
> 	struct ref *prev, *current, *next;
> 
> 	if (!nr_match)
> 		return;
> ' master -- fetch-pack.c

See, this is what I mean - it looks useful, but it's just so subtle that I 
don't ever use it.

For example, getting the tabs/spaces right is basically impossible with 
normal cut-and-paste. I assume you do the above inside GNU emacs or some 
similar special-purpose setup, rather than anything generic.

		Linus