Re: [RFC PATCH 1/2] grep: fallback to interpreter if JIT fails with pcre1

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Dec 10, 2018, 06:54 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqlg4xkh28.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <87r2eqxnru.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

>> @@ -32,14 +32,14 @@ all::
>>  # USE_LIBPCRE is a synonym for USE_LIBPCRE2, define USE_LIBPCRE1
>>  # instead if you'd like to use the legacy version 1 of the PCRE
>>  # library. Support for version 1 will likely be removed in some future
>> -# release of Git, as upstream has all but abandoned it.
>> +# release of Git, as upstream is focusing all development for new
>> +# features in the newer version instead.
>
> I think whatever we do here it makes sense to split this into its own
> patch, since it doesn't have to do with this fallback mechanism.
>
> FWIW I was trying to word this in some way that very briefly described
> the v1 v.s. v2 situation. Just saying "new features" doesn't quite
> capture it, e.g. some bugs in v1 are closed with some resolution like
> "this isn't trivial to fix, use v2 instead".

I actually think we should remove the paragraph that says "Support for version 1 will likely to be removed...", as I do not see how it helps the users. If they have both available, on the day they hear that we are planning to remove pcre1 support and realize that they need to plan to upgrade to the first version of Git that drops pcre1 support, they can switch to pcre2 just fine, so telling them about our future that we do not even know definite plan yet does not help them. It is quite unlikely, given that "upstream has all but abandoned it", that there only is pcre1 support without pcre2 for an obscure platform, and even if there are such platforms, the users on them won't have much choice. Discouraging them from using pcre1 would not help them make better choices anyway.