Re: [PATCH] git help: promote 'git help -av'

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 03:20:00PM -0500, Taylor Blau wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 02:19:28PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 07:47:07PM +0200, Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy wrote:
> >
> > > When you type "git help" (or just "git") you are greeted with a list
> > > with commonly used commands and their short description and are
> > > suggested to use "git help -a" or "git help -g" for more details.
> > >
> > > "git help -av" would be more friendly and inline with what is shown
> > > with "git help" since it shows list of commands with description as
> > > well, and commands are properly grouped.
> >
> > I agree that "help -av" is likely to be more friendly. I kind of wonder
> > if it should just be the default for "-a". Do we have any obligation not
> > to change the format of that output?
> 
> I agree, though I'd like to clarify what you said before doing so
> wholeheartedly.
> 
> Did you mean that all existing uses of 'git help -a' should instead mean
> 'git help -av' (i.e., that '-a' after your proposed patch means the same
> as '-av' in revisions prior to this one?)

Yes, exactly. I think the vast majority of uses would prefer the
categorized list.

The obvious exceptions are:

 - you can't remember the name of the command so an alphabetized list is
   easier for sifting through (without having to re-sift for each
   category).

 - you need a machine-readable version of the list (e.g., for
   programmable completion). We have "git --list-cmds", but we may need
   to advertise it better and mark it non-experimental.

I dunno. Maybe it is not worth the effort. Duy's existing patch is an
easy one liner. ;)

-Peff