Re: [PATCH] mergetool: support --tool-help option like difftool does

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

 -t <tool>::
 --tool=<tool>::
-     Use the diff tool specified by <tool>.  Valid values include
-     emerge, kompare, meld, and vimdiff. Run `git difftool --tool-help`
-     for the list of valid <tool> settings.
+     Use the diff tool specified by <tool>.

I do not see how it is an improvement to drop the most common ones.
People sometimes read documentation without having an access to
shell to run "cmd --tool-help", and a list of handful of well known
ones would serve as a good hint to let the reader know the kind of
commands the front-end is capable of spawning, which in turn help
such a reader to imagine how the command is used to judge if it is
something the reader wants to use.

I don't agree. What "most common ones" are depends on your platform
and is sort of subjective. So it should be either all or non here.
Your argument about people not having shell access is a valid one, but
still that would mean to list all tools in my opinion. And listing all
tools again thwarts our goal to reduce the number of places where new
merge / diff tools need to be added. For people adding new merge /
diff tools it is just clearer what places need to be modified if there
are no places that list an arbitrary subset of tools.

-- 
Sebastian Schuberth