Andreas Ericsson [off-list ref] wrote:
Yes, but it makes sense for merges where you generally pull someone
elses work or one of your topic branches because it gives a general feel
for the amount of modifications and are a sort of conclusion. Commits
are a different thing, because you should know what kind of changes
you've just done. If you don't you have other problems. I for one run
git diff quite frequently when I'm getting close to a commit to make
sure I don't get only the changes I want. I imagine others do too, so
getting a diffstat when issuing the actual commit would just be noisy
and irritating.
I do the same (diff a lot before commit) and thus find commit
outputting anything at all to be noisy and irritating. Frankly
the new
git-diff-tree --summary --root --no-commit-id HEAD
that Junio put on the end is already irritating.
But it was added to help users verify that commit did what they
thought it would (see 61f5cb7f). By the same token sometimes users
accidentally commit files they didn't mean to, or forget to include
files they meant to include. Showing a diffstat would also be a
final sanity check for them.
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