From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff King Subject: Re: backwards compatibility, was Re: [PATCH v1 1/3] Introduce config variable "diff.primer" Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:48:30 -0500 Message-ID: <20090126184829.GA27543@coredump.intra.peff.net> References: <1232904657-31831-1-git-send-email-keith@cs.ucla.edu> <1232904657-31831-2-git-send-email-keith@cs.ucla.edu> <7v1vurf7lq.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> <20090126031206.GB14277@sigill.intra.peff.net> <20090126111605.GB19993@coredump.intra.peff.net> <76718490901260729m21ba140dke157d1d461aed2d5@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Cc: Johannes Schindelin , Keith Cascio , Junio C Hamano , git@vger.kernel.org To: Jay Soffian X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Mon Jan 26 19:50:20 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LRWX0-0007xa-Hv for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:49:59 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751799AbZAZSsd (ORCPT ); Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:48:33 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751554AbZAZSsd (ORCPT ); Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:48:33 -0500 Received: from peff.net ([208.65.91.99]:45299 "EHLO peff.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751470AbZAZSsc (ORCPT ); Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:48:32 -0500 Received: (qmail 5304 invoked by uid 107); 26 Jan 2009 18:48:40 -0000 Received: from coredump.intra.peff.net (HELO coredump.intra.peff.net) (10.0.0.2) by peff.net (qpsmtpd/0.40) with (AES128-SHA encrypted) SMTP; Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:48:40 -0500 Received: by coredump.intra.peff.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:48:30 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <76718490901260729m21ba140dke157d1d461aed2d5@mail.gmail.com> Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 10:29:17AM -0500, Jay Soffian wrote: > Aside, AIX has commands that are run both directly or via smit (a > curses-based interface). When smit calls the commands, it passes a > switch to let said commands know that they are being run from smit. > e.g.: > > -J > This flag is used when the installp command is executed from the > System Management Interface Tool (SMIT) menus. > > Perhaps adding such a concept to those git commands which can be used > in both porcelain and plumbing contexts would be useful for git. Sure, I think that is one of many possible ways that we could differentiate between confusing plumbing and porcelain; another is splitting functionality into two similar commands, one of which is plumbing and one of which is porcelain. The real problem with plans like that, though, is that there are _already_ scripts in the wild that don't understand "-J" (or whatever). My impression from your description above is that "-J" means "don't use fancy features, because we're being called from the menus". And you really want the opposite, which is that scripts opt _in_ to fancy features, not _out_. But then you have that problem that the _user_ is stuck specifying "OK, turn on fancy features." And I don't relish the thought of typing "git diff -J" every time. :) -Peff