Re: [RFC PATCH] Documentation: rev-list-options: clarify history simplification with paths

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> On Sun, 10 Aug 2008, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> 
>> Personally I do not think --full-history without --parents is of much
>> usefulness (I'd let Linus or somebody else defend this usage, or make it
>> imply revs.rewrite_parents otherwise).  If you remove that case from your
>> set of experiments in the equation, do the rest of the results make sense?
>
> Oh, it's _very_ useful.
>
> The most common case is "git whatchanged". It's useful to find a commit 
> that did some change _without_ any graphical front-end. 
>
> And then the merges and parenthood are totally pointless - no human can 
> try to tie things together in their head _anyway_, so why show them? You 
> just want to find the change.

Oh, I was not talking about revs.print_parents part, but about
revs.rewrite_parents part.  What got Thomas puzzled about was exactly how
the set of commits _shown_ are different with and without --parents, which
sets both of these internal flags.  Your "pointless" argument applies to
"print_parents" part, but "rewrite_parents" affects the resulting set.