Re: [RFC] Rebasing merges: a jorney to the ultimate solution(RoadClear)

Hi Buga,

On Sun, 11 Mar 2018, Igor Djordjevic wrote:

I agree with both of you that `pick <merge-commit>` is inflexible 
(not to say just plain wrong), but I never thought about it like that.

If we are to extract further mentioned explicit old:new merge 
parameter mapping to a separate discussion point, what we`re 
eventually left with is just replacing this:

	merge -R -C <original--merge-commit> <merge-head>

... with this:

	pick <original--merge-commit> <merge-head>

I see where you are coming from.

I also see where users will be coming from. Reading a todo list in the
editor is as much documentation as it is a "program to execute". And I am
afraid that reading a command without even mentioning the term "merge"
once is pretty misleading in this setting.

And even from the theoretical point of view: cherry-picking non-merge
commits is *so much different* from "rebasing merge commits" as discussed
here, so much so that using the same command would be even more
misleading.

That is what I had in mind, seeming possibly more straightforward and 
beautifully aligned with previously existing (and well known) 
`rebase` terminology.

Not to say this would make it possible to use other `rebase -i` todo 
list commands, too, like if you want to amend/edit merge commit after 
it was rebased, you would write:

	edit <original--merge-commit> <merge-head>

..., where in case you would simply like to reword its commit 
message, it would be just:

	reword <original--merge-commit> <merge-head>


Even `squash` and `fixup` could have their place in combination with 
a (to be rebased) merge commit, albeit in a pretty exotic rebases, 
thus these could probably be just disallowed - for the time being, at 
least.

Sure, for someone who read the manual, that would be easy to use. Of
course, that's the minority.

Also: the `edit` command is poorly named to begin with. A much cleaner
design would be to introduce the `break` command as suggested by Stephan.

The real power would be buried in implementation, learning to rebase 
merge commits, so user is left with a very familiar interface, slightly 
adapted do accommodate a bit different nature of merge commit in 
comparison to an ordinary one, also to allow a bit more of interactive 
rebase functionality, but it would pretty much stay the same, without 
even a need to learn about new `merge`, `-R`, `-C`, and so on.

Yes, those would have its purpose, but for real merging then 
(creating new merges, or recreating old ones), not necessarily for 
merge rebasing.

With state of `merge -R -C ...` (that `-R` being the culprit), it 
kind of feels like we`re now trying to bolt "rebase merges" 
functionality onto a totally different one (recreate merges, serving 
a different purpose), making them both needlessly dependent on each 
other, further complicating user interface, making it more confusing 
and less tunable as per each separate functionality needs (rebase vs. 
recreate).

I guess I`m the one to pretty much blame here, too, as I really 
wanted `--recreate-merges` to handle "rebase merges" better, only to 
later realize it might not be the best tool for the job, and that a 
more separate approach would be better (at least not through the same 
`merge` todo list command)...

[1] https://public-inbox.org/git/f3872fb9-01bc-b2f1-aee9-cfc0e4db77d6@gmail.com/

Well, the `-R` option is no worse than `git merge`'s `-s <strategy>`
option (which *also* changes the strategies rather drastically).

Ciao,
Dscho