Re: [PATCH] Have a flag to stop the option parsing at the first argument.

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Dec 17, 2007, 12:26 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0712171223210.9446@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <3CF3CEA5-72F1-47D1-ADB9-37F5C2E292A8@wincent.com>

Hi,

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Wincent Colaiuta wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> Yes, we know what it does because we know that "git ... log ..." is 
> actually two commands and each one handles one of the -p switches, but 
> it is much easier to present git as a single tool to the newcomer (and I 
> guess I don't need to argue that case here seeing as the decision has 
> already been taken long ago to talk using dashless forms), and it is 
> much easier to explain to a newcomer something like:
> 
> git log --paginate -p
> 
> Than:
> 
> git -p log -p

How about

	git log -p

Hmm?

Fact is: you make the tool easier by having sane defaults. Not by moving around command line options. The option "-p" for git is an option that holds for _all_ subcommands. That's why it belongs _before_ the subcommand.

Show 5 quoted lines

> But it doesn't really matter. The proposed changes allow old-timers to 
> continue putting their special options between the "git" and the 
> "command". If you don't want to deprecate the -p special because of the 
> confusion it might cause, I think we should at least not give it a very 
> prominent place in the documentation, nor use it any examples.

I think it is wrong to go out of our way to support "git status -p" as a synonym to "git -p status". I simply do not believe that newcomers are not intelligent enough to understand that "git -p <subcommand>" means that the output goes into their pager.

Ciao, Dscho