Re: [PATCH v2 0/1] [Outreachy] commit: display advice hints when commit fails

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Dec 19, 2019, 19:45 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq36dgayma.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq7e2sazlh.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 28 quoted lines

> Emily Shaffer <emilyshaffer@google.com> writes:
>
>> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 10:26:40AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>> "Heba Waly via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
>>> 
>>> >      @@ -19,16 +19,16 @@
>>> >             #   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
>>> >             #   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
>>> >             #
>>> >      -      #   modified:   ../builtin/commit.c
>>> >      +      #   modified:   /builtin/commit.c
>>> 
>>> Really?
>>
>> It's hard to know what this cryptic comment means.. :)
>>
>> This was a recommended change:
>> https://lore.kernel.org/git/20191218031338.203382-1-jonathantanmy@google.com
>>
>> Since other changes were being made at the same time, I personally don't
>> mind a little nit fix in the commit message.
>>
>> Or, do you mean that "now it looks like the file is at the filesystem
>> root, which is wrong"? It is indeed wrong now when it wasn't before. But
>> I, for one, can't tell what you mean by just the one word.
>
> That is exactly the point.  I am not in the business of spoon
> feeding answers.  I want my contributors to *think*.

And I am not being unnecessarily cryptic. If anybody thought a bit about what the topic was about, looking at it it would immediately be obvious that the sample output shown there is totally bogus, due to the leading slash.

Any contributor working on this topic should be competent enough to realize/notice it once it is pointed out---even though lack of proof-reading before sending may cause such a mistake by carelessness. And that is what I wanted to convey by deliberately a short response.