Re: [PATCH 2/2] diff-merges: introduce '-d' option

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 26, 2023, 17:08 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqa5t8ooaj.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <87bkdpl2yx.fsf@osv.gnss.ru>

Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com> writes:

> No need to ask for a new option, as the behavior you describe is already
> there, and is spelled "git log --diff-merges=first-parent"
> (--diff-merges=1 for short).

Ah, that changes things.

Making "--diff-merges=<how>" only about the presentation of merge commits, requiring a separate "-p" for single-parent commits [*], does make the life for those in the "merges are the only interesting things" camp a lot easier, exactly because the lack of "-p" can be used to say "I am not interested in chanages by single-parent commits".

	Side note: I personally think it is a design mistake of
	--diff-merges=<how> (e.g., --cc and --diff-merges=cc do not
	behave the same way) but that is a different story, and it
	is way too late now anyway to "fix" or change.

So "-d" that stands for "--diff-merges=first-parent -p" makes the more useful (to those who think "merges are the only interesting things", which I do not belong to) "--diff-merges=first-parent" (without "-p") less useful. And the combination is not useful for those of us who find individual patches plus tweaks by merges (either --cc or --remerge-diff) are the way to look at the history.

I still do not think that we want to give a short-and-sweet single letter option for such a combination.

Thanks for clarification.