Re: [PATCH] Invert numbers and names in the git-shortlog summary mode.

On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 03:48:41PM +0000, Ingo Molnar wrote:

if we are growing legacies in git this fast it will turn itself into CVS 
very quickly, give or take 20 years ;-) I think a straightforward usage 
model is paramount, so phasing out such inconsistencies as early as 
possible in the project's lifetime should be a priority IMHO. Git has a 
very, very 'refreshing' approach to information management, and that 
should permeate it all across. It's easy to be "fresh" in the beginning 
of a project - maintaining freshness for years is a lot harder. (i dont 
suggest to break compatibility, but to be aware of such inconsitencies 
and make it a priority to get rid of them. It does not help that such 
inconsistencies are only apparent to git newbies.)

  Well that's what deprecation is for, but you cannot do that on short
timeframes.

for example, if i type "git-checkout" in a Linux kernel tree, it just 
sits there for up to a minute, and "does nothing". That is totally 
wrong, human-interaction wise. Then after a minute it just returns. What 
happened? Why? Where? A newbie would then try "git-checkout -v", using 
the well-established "verbose" flag, but that gives:

 Usage: /usr/bin/git-checkout [-q] [-f] [-b <new_branch>] [-m] [<branch>] [<paths>...]

not anymore:

    $ git checkout -v
    error: unknown switch `v'
    usage: git-branch [options] [<branch>] [<paths>...]

	-b ...                create a new branch started at <branch>
	-l                    create the new branchs reflog
	--track               tells if the new branch should track the remote branch
	-f                    proceed even if the index or working tree is not HEAD
	-m                    performa  three-way merge on local modifications if needed
	-q, --quiet           be quiet

Not all commands are migrated to this new scheme though.

The next git has a _lot_ of things done better wrt UI and such issues.
Though some backward incompatible changes must be introduced with the
proper deprecation warnings, so that people can adapt.

-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O                                                madcoder@debian.org
OOO                                                http://www.madism.org