Re: [PATCH 4/4] range-diff: indent special lines as context

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Aug 14, 2018, 18:54 UTC
Message-ID: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.1808141713510.71@tvgsbejvaqbjf.bet>
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kYVw3AXLyB1fx07WojN3dLuxJLDrbWwC_7M=9aoB9YuCg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Stefan,

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018, Stefan Beller wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> > > The later lines that indicate a change to the Makefile will be treated as
> > > context both in the outer and inner diff, such that those lines stay
> > > regular color.
> >
> > While I am a fan of having those lines colored correctly, I have to admit
> > that I am not exactly enthusiastic about that extra indentation...
> >
> > Otherwise, this looks good to me.
> 
> Can you explain what makes you less enthused about the indentation?
> 
> Advantage:
> * allows easy coloring (easy implementation)
> Disadvantage:
> * formats change,

This is it. It breaks my visual flow.

> but the range diff is still in its early design phase, so we're not
> breaking things, yet?

Indeed. We're not breaking things. If you feel strongly about it, we can have that indentation, I *can* get used to it.

>   (Do we ever plan on sending range-diff patches that can be applied to
>   rewrite history? I am very uncertain on such a feature request.  It
>   sounds cool, though)

I remember that I heard you discussing this internally. I am not too big a fan of this idea, I have to admit. The range diff seems more designed to explain how a patch series evolved, rather than providing machine-readable data that allows to recreate said evolution. For example, the committer information as well as the date are missing, which would preclude a faithful reconstruction.

And that is not all: if you wanted to "apply" a range diff, you would need to know more about the base(s) of the two commit ranges. You would need to know that they are at least very similar to the base onto which you want to apply this.

And quite seriously, this would be the wrong way to go in my mind. We have a very efficient data format to transport all of that information: the Git bundle.

Let's not overload the range diff format with multiple, partially contradicting purposes. Think "separation of concerns". It's the same issue, really, as trying to send highly structured data such as bug reports or code contributions via a medium meant to send unstructured plain or formatted text back and forth between human beings.

Ciao, Dscho