Re: [PATCH 1/2] gitk: align the commit summary format to the documentation

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 29, 2016, 18:17 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqpoorbftc.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <a9731f60-5c30-0bc6-f73a-f7ffb7bd4231@kdbg.org>

Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> writes:

Show 18 quoted lines

> Am 26.08.2016 um 20:24 schrieb Junio C Hamano:
>> Beat Bolli <dev+git@drbeat.li> writes:
>>> In 175d38c ("SubmittingPatches: document how to reference previous commits",
>>> 2016-07-28) the format for referring to older commits was specified.
>>
>> is easier to read when pasted into a sentence than what the recent
>> update 175d38ca ("SubmittingPatches: document how to reference
>> previous commits", 2016-07-28) suggests to do, i.e.
>
> While it may be easier to read due to the extra mark-up, the resulting
> text where such a quotation appears does not flow well, IMO. A commit
> message text that references another commit reads more fluently
> without the quotes around the summary line because the quoted text is
> not so much a quotation that must be marked, but a parenthetical
> statement.
>
> I absolutely welcome the proposed change to gitk, because I always
> edit out the double-quotes.

I think that is highly subjective, and as you very well may know, I've been referring to commits without double-quote pair, and have an obvious bias for something I am used to ;-)

I do not see the "" as introducing a quotation. I just view it as very similar to the "" in the following sentence:

    The commit whose title is "foo bar" did not consider there is
    also need to consider baz.

The whole thing is inside () pair, so I agree that with or without "" pair, it is possible to see where the title ends. So I do not have a strong opinion either way.