Re: [PATCH v4 0/4] Add --no-ahead-behind to status

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 10, 2018, 20:22 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqfu7d1n2l.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20180110074701.GB16315@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 18 quoted lines

> To be clear, which approach are we talking about? I think there are
> three options:
>
>   1. The user tells us not to bother computing real ahead/behind values.
>      We always say "same" or "not the same".
>
>   2. The user tells us not to bother computing ahead/behind values
>      with more effort than N. After traversing N commits without getting
>      an answer, we say "same" or "not the same". But we may sometimes
>      give a real answer if we found it within N.
>
>   3. The user tells us not to spend more effort than N. After traversing
>      N commits we try to make some partial statement based on
>      generations (or commit timestamps as a proxy for them).
>
> I agree that (3) is probably not going to be useful enough in the
> general case to merit the implementation effort and confusion. But is
> there anything wrong with (2)?

I agree (3) would not be all that interesting. Offhand I do not see a problem with (2). I think with "real" in your "sometimes give a real answer" you meant to say that we limit our answers to just one three ("same", "not the same", "ahead/behind by exactly N/M") and I think it is a good choice that is easy to explain.

We might be able to say things other than these three, namely, "ahead by no more than N, behind by no more than M", but I do not know if that is useful or merely more confusing than it's worth.