Re: js/no-pager-shorthand [was: What's cooking in git.git (Apr 2018, #04; Mon, 30)]

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: May 1, 2018, 11:57 UTC
Message-ID: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.1805011351330.79@tvgsbejvaqbjf.bet>
In-Reply-To: <918c69be-89ce-c66d-92ee-4821e9412793@kdbg.org>

Hi Hannes,

On Mon, 30 Apr 2018, Johannes Sixt wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Am 30.04.2018 um 05:25 schrieb Junio C Hamano:
> > * js/no-pager-shorthand (2018-04-25) 1 commit
> >   - git: add -N as a short option for --no-pager
> > 
> >   "git --no-pager cmd" did not have short-and-sweet single letter
> >   option. Now it does.
> > 
> >   Will merge to 'next'.
> 
> I consider your argument that -N is only an abbreviation for an unspecific
> "no" a valid one. So, I would like to be sure that we are not painting us into
> the wrong corner by squatting -N for --no-pager.
> 
> I find -P is not that bad after all.

To me, `-P` would suggest the positive action --pager rather than the negative --no-pager.

I wonder whether `-!p` would be better/feasible?

Your use case is quite the corner case, I hope you realize that, as it seems that everybody else is fine with having -FRX as default options for `less`... And with copy/pasting from the `less` output. So introducing a sweet short option for --no-pager, for the benefit of maybe even only one user, seems quite... unusual.

Granted, you cannot simply introduce an alias for `git --no-pager`. But maybe that is what we should do? Maybe we should start supporting aliases without specifying commands, opening the door for things like `git -c ui.color=false`, too.

Then you could add `alias.n=--no-pager` and call `git n show HEAD`, and the -N and -P short options could still wait for a widely-popular option to require a short name.

Ciao, Dscho