Re: [RFC/PATCH] log: add log.firstparent option

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 23, 2015, 22:46 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqpp3io5km.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20150723012343.GA21000@peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

> But other projects prefer to keep the messy history intact.
> For one thing, it makes collaboration on a topic easier, as
> developers can simply pull from each other during the messy
> development. And two, that history may later be useful when
> tracking down a bug, because it gives more insight into the
> actual thought process of the developer.
>
> But in this latter case you want _two_ views of history. You
> may want to see the "simple" version in which a series of
> fully-formed topics hit the branch (and you would like to
> see the diff of their final form). Or you may want to see
> the messy details, because you are digging into a bug
> related to the topic.

While I can see the reasoning behind the above [*1*], I am not sure if the output with "--first-parent" would always be a good match for the "simple" version. Wouldn't the people who keep these messy histories also those who merge project trunk into a random topic and push the result back as the updated project trunk? Admittedly, that merely is saying that "--first-parent" is not a solution to such a project, and does not say much about the usefulness of the new configuration, so I'd queue it as-is.

[Footnote]

*1* I do not necessarily agree, though.  The history being messy is
    a sign that "the actual thought process of the developer" was
    not clearly expressed in the work, and it is not likely that you
    have more insight by looking at it---you will see more mess, for
    certain, though.