Re: [PATCH 3/3] name-rev: --weight option (WIP)

On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 08:53:49PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I wonder if you can
define the weight as a recursive function of the parents.

I do not think we can.  A merge Z between X (that has N commits
behind it) and Y (that has M commits behind it) has at most N+M+1
commits behind it (counting itself), but we cannot tell how many
among these N and M are shared.

quoted

That would double-count "A" and "B" in this example. But maybe there is
a clever way to define it that avoids that.

We've dealt with this issue long time ago when we optimized the
bisection count, which involves exactly the same issue.

OK. I didn't think too hard about it, so I'll trust you that it is not
easy. I wonder if using the generation number would be another way of
defining "oldest" that would be easier to calculate.

-Peff