Re: [PATCH v3 3/5] name-rev: add support to exclude refs by pattern match

Jacob Keller [off-list ref] writes:

Yes this makes sense. I'm still looking at whether the alternative
implementation suggested based on the git-log style would make more
sense or not, but if we keep this as is, the added text you gave is
important.

I actually think it is a red-herring that "git log" honors "orders";
it does, but that is not a result of carefully considering the
desired behaviour.  It instead is a historical wart that came from
the fact that "--branches" and friends uses for_each_glob_ref_in()
that takes the top-level hierarchy paths like "refs/heads/" and the
implementation of "--exclude" piggybacked into the function in a
lazy way.  

If exclusion were done independently (e.g. in a way similar to what
you did in this series using subpath match), we wouldn't have had
the "the user must give exclude patterns first that would affect the
next inclusion pattern, at which point the exclude patterns are
cleared and the user needs to start over", which is an end-user
experience that is clunky.