More support on branch description?

More support on branch description?

[Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy]

Hi,

The coming v1.7.9 will introduce branch description, mainly used in
integration process. I think we could make it useful for users who
don't extensively use request-pull/format-patch. Showing a short
summary along with branch name in "git branch" would be nice. "branch
-v" is already used for something else, maybe we can come up with
another option, or "-v -v"? Another place we could show branch
description is "git status". What do you think?
-- 
Duy

Re: More support on branch description?

[Michael Schubert]

On 01/19/2012 03:14 PM, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
> The coming v1.7.9 will introduce branch description, mainly used in
> integration process. I think we could make it useful for users who
> don't extensively use request-pull/format-patch. Showing a short
> summary along with branch name in "git branch" would be nice. "branch
> -v" is already used for something else, maybe we can come up with
> another option, or "-v -v"? Another place we could show branch
> description is "git status". What do you think?

Junio suggested a new option "--verbose-format" for branch some weeks
ago:

	http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/186727

I planned on working on it, but haven't found the time yet nor do I
really know which way to go.? (pretty.c seems to be the right
place for format code, but it's very commit format specific atm.)

Re: More support on branch description?

[Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:14 PM, Michael Schubert <mschub@elegosoft.com> wrote:
> Junio suggested a new option "--verbose-format" for branch some weeks
> ago:
>
>        http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/186727
>
> I planned on working on it, but haven't found the time yet nor do I
> really know which way to go.? (pretty.c seems to be the right
> place for format code, but it's very commit format specific atm.)

Thanks. I must have missed that. There's another piece of formatting
code in "for-each-ref --format" command (I happened to have a look at
it a few days ago). It's ref-specific, probably closer than pretty.c
for this kind of stuff.
-- 
Duy

Re: More support on branch description?

[Junio C Hamano]

Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:

> The coming v1.7.9 will introduce branch description, mainly used in
> integration process. I think we could make it useful for users who
> don't extensively use request-pull/format-patch. Showing a short
> summary along with branch name in "git branch" would be nice.

I agree that it would be nice to give users access to the information even
if the branch ends up being merged to the master branch by you and never
leaves your repository by itself.

You however are misguided to say "Showing a short summary along...".

The branch description support is to give users a place to record detailed
explanation about a branch, similar in size to what you would normally
place in a log message of a commit or a cover letter of a series.  There
wasn't any convenient place to do so for a branch that is (1) inherently a
moving target while it is being developed and (2) is not a good match for
tags and notes.

There already is a good place for a brief summary and it is called "branch
name". Name your branches just like you name your functions.

Re: More support on branch description?

[Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 5:22 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> You however are misguided to say "Showing a short summary along...".

It should have been "short status".

> The branch description support is to give users a place to record detailed
> explanation about a branch, similar in size to what you would normally
> place in a log message of a commit or a cover letter of a series.  There
> wasn't any convenient place to do so for a branch that is (1) inherently a
> moving target while it is being developed and (2) is not a good match for
> tags and notes.

I was thinking about that (and wondering if I abused
branch.*.description), maybe we can have a similar convention for
commit message, one short line, empty line, then more detail
explanation. But branch.*.description is tied to
format-patch/request-pull, maybe another config key.

> There already is a good place for a brief summary and it is called "branch
> name". Name your branches just like you name your functions.

Yes, but it's not suitable for current status of the branch.
-- 
Duy