Phillip Susi [off-list ref] writes:
That does help me understand the difference between -c and -cc, but I
still don't see why one or the other is not the default behavior of log
-p, instead of opting to never show anything at all for merges?
Assuming this is about the default, the answer is very simple. The
features to support -c and --cc came _much_ later than -p, and many people
have got used to the default behaviour after using "log -p" for a long
time. It simply is rude to change the default on them.
As -c or --cc won't do anything special on a non-merge commit, you can
always say "log -p --cc" if that output is what you want to see.