Re: [PATCH] Add support for --wrt-author, --author and --exclude-author switches to git-rev-list

[Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com>]

| not sure why, but my first attempt to post this to the list didn't
seem to make it

| I've also modified my response slightly to suggest an alternate name for the
| --exclude-author swtich which may partly address pasky's concerns. amended
| response marked with ***

On 6/7/05, Petr Baudis <pasky@ucw.cz> wrote:
>
> I'd prefer just --wrt-author and --exclude-author to take an argument on
> their own.

The reason I don't want to do this is that it doesn't really make
sense in the context of the change to specify one author for
--wrt-author and another for --exclude-author. In normal use --author
defaults to GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL or the locally derived user@host.domain.
The  intention is simply to override this default derivation.

*** That said, it might better if --exclude-author was called
something like --following-author --after-author or --stop-at-author,
since its meaning is to stop traversal rather than simply omit match
entries which is the meaning that a reasonable user might attach to
use of the word "exclude"

My preference is --following-author.

Thoughts anyone?

>
> (Note that I don't endorse this patch and the --wrt-author behaviour in
> particular seems strange. I don't have enough time to comment on it
> sensibly now, though. I'm just focusing on style here since I'd like to
> still be able to read git's source code few weeks from now on.)

The rationale for the change is as follows:

During parallel development, one is aware of ones own
changes...everyone else changes haven't happened yet as far as you are
concerned. Only when they appear in a future merge that incorporates
one's own changes do the other changes appear in your own workspace.

As far as you are concerned, these changes occurred after you made
your own - your changes were not dependent on those changes, only on
those that came before. So the linearisation reflects that perceived
ordering of changes.

--wrt-author helps to reconstruct the merge-history from the
perspective of each individual committer.

Let me know if this doesn't explain the rationale completely enough
for your understanding.

jon.