Re: [RFC/PATCH] revision.c: add --format option for 'git log'

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Felipe Contreras [off-list ref] writes:
...

quoted

Well, my hope was to replace --pretty=short with --format=short, but
you said that would break other scripts.

It is not just scripts you break.  You also break people's trained
fingers.
...
The only reason why new --format=<fmt> could be an useful addition is
because --pretty=format:<fmt> may be too long to type interactively.

An obvious alternative with lessor impact than your patch would be not to
introduce an additional option --format, but just make ":" as a synonym to
"tformat:".  Then you can say "--pretty=:%h %s".  You would need to type
one colon more but that might conceptually be less confusing, when
somebody is starting to learn git *after* this change, without knowing
that we did not have --format in earlier versions, from the documentation
and existing pages on various web sites.