From: Johannes Schindelin Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:26:39 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Have a flag to stop the option parsing at the first argument. Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <3CF3CEA5-72F1-47D1-ADB9-37F5C2E292A8@wincent.com> Hi, On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Wincent Colaiuta wrote: > 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. > 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 " means that the output goes into their pager. Ciao, Dscho