Re: What's cooking in git.git (Jul 2026, #12)

[Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>]

On 03/08/2026 17:02, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> If you raise a point and it is dismissed without a convincing
>> explanation then its fine to raise it again asking for more details so
>> that you can understand the reason behind the decision. That often leads
>> to a productive discussion and an improved design.
> 
> True.  But because "convincing" is not black and white, we need to
> be careful a bit.

Indeed - what I'm really looking for in a discussion is to be convinced 
that there is a reasonably logical rationale behind a decision and that 
the other person has considered the counterarguments. Many decisions are 
trade offs and different people may quite reasonably place different 
weight the factors involved leading to different results. If I disagree 
with a decision I try to only keep pushing back if I think the logic 
behind the decision is flawed. I also find such discussions useful for 
improving my own understanding of the problem and sometimes change my 
mind as a result.

>> Having thought about it a bit over the weekend I wonder if the best
>> solution when squashing is to default to looking at the commits being
>> squashed before deciding whether to open the editor or not and allow the
>> user to override that on the commandline like "git commit". If we're
>> squashing a bunch of "fixup!" and/or "amend!" commits into a single
>> target then I'm not sure its worth opening the editor...
> 
> Hmph, a base commit with an "amend!" (tells the machinery to use the
> message from the "amend!" commit only, discarding the existing one)
> is clear to me that there is no need for further editing, but if
> there is any "fixup!" (code change, for which need for associating
> log message change is unknown) or if there are multiple "amend!", I
> am not so sure.  It does make it confusing, I suspect.

I certainly don't object to always opening the editor, it has the 
advantage that it is much easier to explain and encourages users to 
revise the commit message when they are squashing.

Thanks

Phillip