Re: Re* [PATCH] doc: glossary: add entry for revision range

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 18, 2021, 06:59 UTC
Message-ID: <YKNl6IAFGezjCZUf@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <60a2a670648b1_12801e20895@natae.notmuch>

On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 12:22:56PM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> > > If we must not use @, then I would rather use `master..mybranch`, or
> > > something like that. HEAD seems like a technical accident. But of course
> > > I would prefer HEAD to nothing, because at least it qualifies as an
> > > ending point.
> > 
> > I agree that if the purpose is to be illustrative, using shortcuts like
> > "an empty endpoint means HEAD" is not helpful. And likewise for "@"; if
> > you need to have "revision range" defined, there is a good chance that
> > you don't know about shortcuts like "@" either.
> 
> But they don't need to know what @ means; it's clearly a shortcut for
> _something_, and that's all they need to know. In fact, I'd say most
> people can quickly realize what a shorcut for it is, which is why it was
> picked by the git project, and many Mercurial projects as well.

That's my point. It _isn't_ clearly a shortcut for something for all people. If you are reading the glossary entry for "revision range", you might not know about the ".." syntax at all. So what does:

  foo..@

mean? Does it parse as three (foo, .., @) or is "..@" a special symbol?

I expect most people would figure it out. But if your point is to serve as documentation, especially for people who do not yet know all of the concepts, then why not try to reduce the chance of error as much as possible?

> Actually, I would prefer something more real, like "feature-x".

Sure, that is fine with me.

-Peff