threads / rfc / 40018

RFC patchgitweb: Don't pass --full-history to git-log(1)

Subject: [PATCH/RFC] gitweb: Don't pass --full-history to git-log(1)

## tl;dr

5 messages between Aug 5, 2015 and Aug 6, 2015. Diffs are folded; open one to read it.

replies: 4people: 2as markdown or json

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason· Aug 5, 2015, 14:21 UTC · lore

When you look at the history for a file via "git log" we don't show --full-history by default, but the Gitweb UI does so, which can be very confusing for all the reasons discussed in "History Simplification" in git-log(1) and in http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/89400/focus=90659

We've been doing history via --full-history since pretty much forever, but I think this is much more usable, and on a typical project with lots of branches being merged it makes for a much less confusing view. We do this for git log by default, why wouldn't Gitweb follow suit?

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 gitweb/gitweb.perl | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Show changes to gitweb/gitweb.perl +1 −1

diff --git a/gitweb/gitweb.perl b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
index 7a5b23a..2913896 100755
--- a/gitweb/gitweb.perl
+++ b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
@@ -7387,7 +7387,7 @@ sub git_log_generic {
 	}
 	my @commitlist =
 		parse_commits($commit_hash, 101, (100 * $page),
-		              defined $file_name ? ($file_name, "--full-history") : ());
+		              defined $file_name ? $file_name : ());
 
 	my $ftype;
 	if (!defined $file_hash && defined $file_name) {

-- 
2.1.3

Junio C Hamano· Aug 5, 2015, 16:54 UTC · re: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason · lore

Re: [PATCH/RFC] gitweb: Don't pass --full-history to git-log(1)

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

Show 10 quoted lines

> When you look at the history for a file via "git log" we don't show
> --full-history by default, but the Gitweb UI does so, which can be very
> confusing for all the reasons discussed in "History Simplification" in
> git-log(1) and in
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/89400/focus=90659
>
> We've been doing history via --full-history since pretty much forever,
> but I think this is much more usable, and on a typical project with lots
> of branches being merged it makes for a much less confusing view. We do
> this for git log by default, why wouldn't Gitweb follow suit?

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/89400/focus=90758

seems to agree with you in principle that this would be what gitweb should do if it were written today.

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason· Aug 5, 2015, 21:28 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: [PATCH/RFC] gitweb: Don't pass --full-history to git-log(1)

On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 6:54 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> When you look at the history for a file via "git log" we don't show
>> --full-history by default, but the Gitweb UI does so, which can be very
>> confusing for all the reasons discussed in "History Simplification" in
>> git-log(1) and in
>> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/89400/focus=90659
>>
>> We've been doing history via --full-history since pretty much forever,
>> but I think this is much more usable, and on a typical project with lots
>> of branches being merged it makes for a much less confusing view. We do
>> this for git log by default, why wouldn't Gitweb follow suit?
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/89400/focus=90758
>
> seems to agree with you in principle that this would be what gitweb
> should do if it were written today.

I'm reminded of the make(1) story about not supporting spaces instead of tabs because the guy already had a few dozen users.

We could have changed this in 2008, when Git already had much fewer users, and I think we can still change it. It makes more sense as a default, especially on busy repos with lots of merges. At work where lots of merges are in flight literally 1/10 commits for any given file is relevant.

Who'd be linking to gitweb's log output expecting its semantics to never change, and is use case more important than having a saner view for the vast majority of users who are just browsing around?

But if there's strong objections to it a coworker who encountered this made a patch to it to add an extra "full history" an addition to the "history" view (which would change, but not the permalinks), in case there were objections to just changing it.

Junio C Hamano· Aug 5, 2015, 21:45 UTC · re: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason · lore

Re: [PATCH/RFC] gitweb: Don't pass --full-history to git-log(1)

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

Show 5 quoted lines

> I'm reminded of the make(1) story about not supporting spaces instead
> of tabs because the guy already had a few dozen users.
>
> We could have changed this in 2008, when Git already had much fewer
> users,

Heh, in 2008 we already had more than a few dozen.

I think

 (1) It is perfectly OK to add an UI option to let the web visitor
     choose between simplified and full history at runtime,
     optionally with a new gitweb.conf option to let the project
     owner choose which one is the default;

 (2) It is also OK to add gitweb.conf option to let the project/site
     choose between the two, optionally allowing the web visitor to
     override it with something like (1).

Anything else would not give the same out-of-the-box experience and would probably not fly well.

Junio C Hamano· Aug 6, 2015, 07:41 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: [PATCH/RFC] gitweb: Don't pass --full-history to git-log(1)

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> Heh, in 2008 we already had more than a few dozen.
>
> I think
>
>  (1) It is perfectly OK to add an UI option to let the web visitor
>      choose between simplified and full history at runtime,
>      optionally with a new gitweb.conf option to let the project
>      owner choose which one is the default;
>
>  (2) It is also OK to add gitweb.conf option to let the project/site
>      choose between the two, optionally allowing the web visitor to
>      override it with something like (1).
>
> Anything else would not give the same out-of-the-box experience and
> would probably not fly well.

Just to make sure, "would not fly well" is not an outright rejection (given enough thrust, even a pig could fly).

An alternative with a bit more friction may be to do a variant of (2), without UI but only with gitweb.conf tweakability, _and_ flipped default. That will break the out-of-the-box experience but I suspect that many people would not notice (because their history is linear), some people who do notice would like the change, and the remainder can tweak their installation back to the full-history version, as long the change of the default is prominently advertised.