From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jonathan Nieder Subject: Re: Harmful LESS flags Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:11:24 -0700 Message-ID: <20140425151124.GA11479@google.com> References: <4dc69237123e8962b2b2b901692ea78e.id@mailtor> <87lhuvb9kr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Junio C Hamano , David Kastrup , d9ba@mailtor.net, git@vger.kernel.org To: Matthieu Moy X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri Apr 25 17:12:22 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WdhnW-0005Op-1n for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Fri, 25 Apr 2014 17:12:18 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752158AbaDYPLg (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:11:36 -0400 Received: from mail-pb0-f49.google.com ([209.85.160.49]:55155 "EHLO mail-pb0-f49.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752126AbaDYPLb (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:11:31 -0400 Received: by mail-pb0-f49.google.com with SMTP id rr13so3298537pbb.22 for ; Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:11:30 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id:references:mime-version :content-type:content-disposition:in-reply-to:user-agent; bh=y97NDLXsUXPNidMqmBhKKf2ITvYM7EC2LCgi5Genbo4=; b=nVXTz0T/315+P6yb6+tdAb7xXjT++1nlX07l8YhJVZPWrf4G3lYLnXsCNdEy5z+Jyu yu0se8LTwHFLQJed0M+QRHN4gEfvHRmkfWmob+oRQ7epRpV33IBkLBNDv/P5a/LQPpa7 C99pgCrBWhmflW0VLcOIkLm+1Uuf15XseSkpLp2PRyI49avVdX5v8OgKwCQeaPoObUGy DOD0l6iyX5c8BWw1ilW8bjBnMgibOhRf8kiFteXda9+oVLxqba/1aCXGGEekdx4QxDnA JKTzDI0dHuFjBAcTJzGjtdI55MwbIWI/tu1fUpGUwsbN1ySp4x05/eS6IVdnkYJ/FLoH n4fA== X-Received: by 10.68.189.68 with SMTP id gg4mr12136733pbc.42.1398438690689; Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:11:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from google.com ([2620:0:1000:5b00:b6b5:2fff:fec3:b50d]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id xx4sm16527993pbb.51.2014.04.25.08.11.29 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:11:30 -0700 (PDT) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Hi, Matthieu Moy wrote: > I am personally in favor of changing the default to drop the S. Silently > hiding stuff from the user's eyes is really bad. With good coding > standard and reasonable terminal size, it actually doesn't matter. Just for clarity: no, when we are talking about well formatted code, -S is actually a way better interface. That's because indentation matters and makes it easy to take in code structure at a glance, long lines that get cut off by the margin stick out like a sore thumb already, and lines wrapped at an arbitrary character are even more distracting to the point of being useless. In practice I believe the "Silently hiding stuff" concern is much harder to solve. In the case of malicious code that opened this thread, I think a marker on the right margin would reveal the whitespace more clearly than wrapping that the reader may or may not notice. Luckily, it is very easy to switch between the two views on the fly --- in an already-open "less" window, you just type '-' + 'S'. In the spirit of not overriding tool defaults when there is not a strong reason to do so, I agree that if someone writes a patch to drop the 'S' I would probably like it. [...] > I do not think we particularly need a transition plan here: it's purely > a user-interface thing, not something that may break any script or other > tool. Agreed ---- a note in release notes and making sure the documentation reflects the new default should be enough. Thanks and hope that helps, Jonathan