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From: Jonatan Holmgren <jonatan@jontes.page>
To: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Cc: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>,
	git@vger.kernel.org, rsch@web.de, michael.grossfeld@amd.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] alias: restore support for simple dotted aliases
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:21:52 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4a130a23-fa32-460b-a338-409d85d18166@jontes.page> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260425232916.GA29816@coredump.intra.peff.net>

I see the appeal of the overlapping-namespace approach for maximum compat.

My hesitation is that it introduces a config model where a single key
(`alias.foo.bar`) no longer has a clear interpretation, but instead is
implicitly treated as both a historical alias and structured data. That
feels harder to reason about and document.

For the regression, I would lean toward a narrower compatibility rule:
restore dotted aliases except where they collide with explicitly
recognized structured keys (currently `command`). That keeps behavior
predictable while still fixing the breakage.

If we want to grow metadata in the future, it might be better to make
that expansion explicit at that point rather than baking in ambiguity
now.

I think the worst outcome from this thread would be moving the
new alias syntax into a different namespace entirely (e.g., `nalias`).
If namespace cleanliness is the priority, reserving `command` and
`alias-*` still seems like the best path forward to me.

One question: do we consider the historical dotted aliases something we
want to preserve indefinitely, or just something to transition away from?
My assumption has been that they were an accidental side-effect of the
config parsing rather than a designed feature, but I agree they are now
part of existing workflows and need to be handled carefully.

  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-04-26 19:27 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 17+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-04-23 18:19 Bug: Hierarchical Aliases no longer work in 2.54.0 Grossfeld, Michael
2026-04-23 21:12 ` Jeff King
2026-04-23 22:55   ` Michael Grossfeld
2026-04-23 21:36 ` René Scharfe
2026-04-23 22:46   ` Michael Grossfeld
2026-04-24  7:29 ` Jonatan Holmgren
2026-04-24 15:10 ` [PATCH] alias: restore support for simple dotted aliases Jonatan Holmgren
2026-04-24 16:09   ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2026-04-24 22:47   ` Junio C Hamano
2026-04-25  9:57     ` Jonatan Holmgren
2026-04-25 23:29       ` Jeff King
2026-04-25 23:47         ` Jeff King
2026-04-26 19:21         ` Jonatan Holmgren [this message]
2026-04-26 23:01           ` Jeff King
2026-04-27  8:36             ` Jonatan Holmgren
2026-05-12  4:43               ` Junio C Hamano
2026-04-24 16:17 ` Jonatan Holmgren

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