Re: [PATCH 6/6] diff-merges: let -m imply -p

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 11, 2021, 20:43 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqtun9knmy.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CABPp-BEwp5bWWaBkv-G+OAJgd+pcsB=GoMCBd+gnhK5JAAnFgQ@mail.gmail.com>

Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Tue, May 11, 2021 at 7:03 AM Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
> I think --cc is a lot better than -m for helping you find what users
> changed when they did the merge, but I agree the format is somewhat
> difficult for many users to understand.  (--diff-merges=remerge, or
> --remerge-diff, fixes these problems, IMO.)  I think
> --diff-merges=first-parent, while fine when explicitly requested on
> the command line, would be wildly misleading as a default because it
> would attribute changes to a merge commit that were made elsewhere.
>
>> Overall, let's rather make -m give diff to the first parent by default.
>> Simple. Useful. Not confusing.
>
> I think it's confusing.

I do not think it is particularly confusing---after all, it shows "here is a comparison between two trees" the users are familiar with in a single strand of pearls.

But I do think that it is an utterly misleading option to show merges in general. When "log" is used with the "--first-parent" traversal, "compare with the first parent to show everything the side branch did" is an acceptable alternative, but even there, it is far less suitable than the "remerge" or "cc", I would think, as the default format.

Thanks.