Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Introduce -t, --table for status/add commands

From: Jacob Stopak <jacob@initialcommit.io>
Date: Oct 23, 2023, 17:30 UTC
Message-ID: <ZTatzlzCkPOW3Rn7.jacob@initialcommit.io>
In-Reply-To: <bc55e29274da0d8059a8cd4383aa1b22@manjaro.org>

On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 04:34:15PM +0200, Dragan Simic wrote:

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> On 2023-10-23 12:52, Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 02:55:05PM +0200, Dragan Simic wrote:
> > > Oh, that's awesome and I'm really happy to be wrong with my broad
> > > classification of VCS users.  However, I still need to be convinced
> > > further, and I'd assign your example as an exception to the rules,
> > 
> > i don't see myself as exceptional at all in that regard.
> > in fact, your second user group seems like unicorns, and the first
> > like a disparaging attitude from an elitist. in reality, users lie on
> > a spectrum of willingness to engage with the details of the tools they
> > use, and that willingness is circumstantial. a tool that is
> > forthcoming with information has a higher chance of being actively
> > engaged.

Just a note here, in my initial reply I was thinking of writing something similar about how in reality users of a tool as ubiquitous as Git would form a continuous spectrum in terms of their usage habits and trying to neatly plop them into 2 categories by speculating on their motives is an oversimplification to the point where it might not be so helpful evaluating whether an option like this would make sense to implement.

To me the bigger question is much simpler:

"Would this feature improve the Git experience for a signficant number of users?"

I have some evidence to support the claim that it would.

My Git-Sim tool does essentially what this proposal suggests and it has about 31,000 installs since I released it early this year. Granted this is a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things, but it still shows that there is demand for such a thing.

Git-Sim is a visual dry-run tool for Git that creates images simulating what the corresponding Git command will do, without actually making any change to the underlying repo state. Another important aspect is that command syntax mimics Git's exactly - so to simulate any Git command, like:

$ git add asdf.txt qwer.txt

You would just replace the executable name and run:

$ git-sim add asdf.txt qwer.txt

and it will show you in an image exactly what will happen.

This is important because even simulating the command requires the user to know and use the Git CLI syntax for the command. It keeps them on the command line to do all of their actual work, unlike other true "pointy clicky GUI's" I've seen which expect the user to do all their work in the GUI. In fact this tool and feature expect no pointing or clicking at all.

The purpose of this is that users actually do all their work in the CLI and learn to use Git as intuitively as possible, the way the "spartan" CLI folks use it, the way it is meant to be used.

The reason to include a format like this in Git instead of just in my tool is simply to reach a wider audience and benefit more people. Of course it also appears much more trustworthy when a feature is part of the native tool itself instead of some external thing.

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> > i for one think that it would be a perfectly valid experiment to go
> > all-in and beyond with jacob's proposal - _and make it the default_
> > (when the output is a tty). more advanced users who feel annoyed would
> > be expected to opt out of it via configuration, as they are for the
> > advice messages. because it's really the same idea, only thought
> > bigger.
> 
> I'd never support that, FWIW.

FWIW, I'd _never suggest_ that. I very much value Git's current usage and wouldn't dream to make this the default. This proposal is for an optional flag to help users who would benefit from it, nothing more, nothing less. Speculating on user motives to classify them into 2 broad categories in order to prove the feature isn't helpful misses the point that there is a (relatively large IMO) subset of users who would benefit from it.

As an optional flag, experienced users wouldn't bat an eyelash, and the type of users who installed my tool could use the flag on and off until they feel confident enough to drop it. But it is always there in case they need a refresher.