From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Thomas Rast Subject: Re: [PATCH] merge: use editor by default in interactive sessions Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:06:52 +0100 Message-ID: <87hazdazmb.fsf@thomas.inf.ethz.ch> References: <7vipk26p1b.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Junio C Hamano , X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Mon Jan 30 18:07:05 2012 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 1Rruh3-0005Nn-W5 for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:07:02 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753134Ab2A3RG5 (ORCPT ); Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:06:57 -0500 Received: from edge20.ethz.ch ([82.130.99.26]:40959 "EHLO edge20.ethz.ch" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752916Ab2A3RGz (ORCPT ); Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:06:55 -0500 Received: from CAS11.d.ethz.ch (172.31.38.211) by edge20.ethz.ch (82.130.99.26) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 14.1.355.2; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:06:51 +0100 Received: from thomas.inf.ethz.ch.ethz.ch (129.132.153.233) by CAS11.d.ethz.ch (172.31.38.211) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 14.1.355.2; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:06:52 +0100 In-Reply-To: <7vipk26p1b.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> User-Agent: Notmuch/0.3.1-59-g676d251 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/23.3.1 (x86_64-suse-linux-gnu) X-Originating-IP: [129.132.153.233] Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:18:40 -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Traditionally, a cleanly resolved merge was committed by "git merge" using > the auto-generated merge commit log message with invoking the editor. > > After 5 years of use in the field, it turns out that people perform too > many unjustified merges of the upstream history into their topic branches. > These merges are not just useless, but they are often not explained well, > and making the end result unreadable when it gets time for merging their > history back to their upstream. Ok, so I'm late to the party and perhaps I missed the discussion about this, but... I think the proposed commit message should have a comment, just like for an ordinary commit, that explains why we are showing the user an editor. (I'm too lazy to check, but I suspect we *always* give a comment about what is going on when we fire up an editor.) I would suggest something like # Please enter the commit message for your merge commit. Lines starting # with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit. or if you feel comfortable with educating the user in a workflow-specific way, even # Please enter the commit message for your merge commit. You should # justify it especially if it merges an updated upstream into a topic # branch. # # Lines starting with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts # the commit. -- Thomas Rast trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch