Re: [PATCH/RFC] Make help behaviour more consistent

From: Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr>
Date: Mar 11, 2013, 08:13 UTC
Message-ID: <vpq620yfj6g.fsf@grenoble-inp.fr>
In-Reply-To: <1362937729-9050-1-git-send-email-kevin@bracey.fi>

Kevin Bracey <kevin@bracey.fi> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Two significant usability flaws here:
>  - If using man, "man git" to side-step "git help" is obvious. But if
>    trying to use help.format=web, how to get the root html page? My
>    technique was "git help XXX" and click the "git(1) suite" link at the
>    bottom. "git help git" is non-obvious and apparently undocumented
>    (it's not mentioned by "git", "git help", or "git help help"...).

Can't this be solved by adding something like

  See 'git help git' for general help about Git.

to the output of "git help"? I think the fact that "git help" provides a small amount of output (typically: fits on one screen) is a nice feature that avoids scaring people too early with the actual doc.

That said, I'm no longer a user of the short command list, so maybe I'm not a good judge ;-).

> Option list shown in command-line usage re-ordered to match the manual
> page, and git and git-help manual pages edited to reflect the new help
> behaviour.

This is typically better submitted as a separate patch. Putting uncontroversial changes in their own patches help the discussion to focus on important changes, and avoids distracting the review.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/