Re: [PATCH/RFC] commit: add short option for --amend

On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 8:47 AM Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] wrote:

Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy wrote:

quoted

--- a/builtin/commit.c
+++ b/builtin/commit.c

@@ -1489,7 +1489,7 @@ int cmd_commit(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
                          STATUS_FORMAT_LONG),
              OPT_BOOL('z', "null", &s.null_termination,
                       N_("terminate entries with NUL")),
-             OPT_BOOL(0, "amend", &amend, N_("amend previous commit")),
+             OPT_BOOL('j', "amend", &amend, N_("amend previous commit")),

[...]

quoted

Thoughts?

I'm not a fan.  I would have trouble remembering what the short option
name means, and it matches the common --jobs option for parallelism
that many commands use.  "git commit --am" works today already and
doesn't run into those problems.

The alternative is -A or -M which may be easier associated with
--amend. That "--am" also would break the moment somebody adds
--amsomething.

I'm sympathetic to the goal of saving typing, but I'm more sympathetic
to the goal of making user support easier, which is what makes me end
up there.

That said, I've been looking recently at Mercurial's "hg evolve"
extension[1] and I wouldn't be against a well thought out new command
(e.g. "git amend") that does the equivalent of "git commit --amend"
with some related features.  So I think there are some paths forward
that involve abbreviating.

I'm not opposed to a new command like this, but I don't think it
should stop us from adding short options.
-- 
Duy