Re: Improving the git remote command

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 10:24:35AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
> > ... But we are left with three options:
> >
> >   1. Add "git remote list" with verbose output. This is bad because it
> >      differs gratuitously from "git remote".
> >
> >   2. Add "git remote list" with non-verbose output. This is good because
> >      it means "git remote" is just a shortcut for "git remote list",
> >      which is consistent with other parts of git. But it is potentially
> >      bad if "-v" is a better output format.
> >
> >   3. Add "git remote list" with verbose output, and tweak "git remote"
> >      to match. This is bad because it breaks backwards compatibility.
> >
> > The proposal is for (1). I think we agree that (3) is out. The question
> > is whether (1) or (2) is the least bad.
> 
> I would imagine that those who want list of remotes programatically
> would read from "git config" output and it would be with less
> friction to change the output from "git remote", a command that is
> solely to cater to end-user humans, to suit people's needs, so I am
> not sure if (3) is immediately "out".

Yeah, I touched on that earlier. I would personally consider "git
remote" to be a porcelain, and "git config" to be the appropriate
plumbing for accessing those values. However, it's a little tricky to
robustly get the list of remotes with "git config". So I would not be
surprised if scripts have used "git remote" to do the same thing (I know
for a fact that some internal scripts at GitHub did this, though I
recently cleaned them up so I do not have a vested interest either way
at this point).

That does not mean those scripts are right and we cannot change things,
but it may be a matter of practicality.

> Having said that, my preference is 
> 
>     0. Do nothing, but document the "default to listing" better if
>        needed.
> 
> and then 2. above, and then 1.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

-Peff