From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Eric Sunshine Subject: Re: Patch that modifies git usage message Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:40:21 -0400 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: Junio C Hamano , Stefan Beller , "git@vger.kernel.org" To: Alangi Derick X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri May 01 19:40:40 2015 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 1YoEvR-0002iq-7e for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Fri, 01 May 2015 19:40:33 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751490AbbEARk0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 May 2015 13:40:26 -0400 Received: from mail-ie0-f174.google.com ([209.85.223.174]:35036 "EHLO mail-ie0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751388AbbEARkV (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 May 2015 13:40:21 -0400 Received: by iejt8 with SMTP id t8so93811328iej.2 for ; Fri, 01 May 2015 10:40:21 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject :from:to:cc:content-type; bh=ZrhZfpU2QD+YECMrwtzydEzUEv80eaM4jtojsLLMqKg=; b=Ygo1OV2uhS6vLOGmdmuIx7M0e+173LdE+Z2mRskPb7lNHOcj9cbns1W8oMPgLV1HrO 2bjewF54AM0S4khHFtLqbNlEdkiMIO3X79sz0RvwyYAy/3Orwe8v49BgVKVo7V6DMF3r aezQr67RqSRgpelbxWviZV7pReFmLkBU/hZ/KswsLAc/uk784Nd0oCRvfw+7cwglTWp/ r1zMjKNM1EIOx29QX7XjZTnQVNGiJoPVurZ1fj0AuGpvMYYInxvF8cHpsHPpjgduqyId jUSbRVBD2RUWpkyAvezi1AboJ8SDS7Y8eecpyhwcViRmZIqWldli8MhT4rRuuR+Wg3Q9 NQrA== X-Received: by 10.107.31.134 with SMTP id f128mr13710562iof.19.1430502021341; Fri, 01 May 2015 10:40:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.107.28.132 with HTTP; Fri, 1 May 2015 10:40:21 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: X-Google-Sender-Auth: O3-ahCnEOro2CApy6KuPauCEifg Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: (Etiquette on this list is to reply inline rather than top-posting[1].) On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Alangi Derick wrote: > What about the other strings used for > error display? For example > die("cannot handle %s as a builtin", cmd); > Can't i change the "cannot" to "Cannot"? Or is there a problem with > that one too? Despite inconsistencies in existing code, lowercase in new error messages is intentional. Documentation/CodingGuidelines has this to say[2]: Error Messages - Do not capitalize ("unable to open %s", not "Unable to open %s") Therefore, a goal more aligned with this recommendation would be to submit a patch which changes capitalized error messages to lowercase, however, heed this warning[3] from CodingGuidelines: - Fixing style violations while working on a real change as a preparatory clean-up step is good, but otherwise avoid useless code churn for the sake of conforming to the style. "Once it _is_ in the tree, it's not really worth the patch noise to go and fix it up." Cf. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/943020 Sometimes there are exceptions. One may be able to argue that making user-facing messages more consistent is worthwhile (for instance [4]). Finally, changing "usage:" to "Usage:" would undo recent work to improve consistency of usage messages[4]. [1]: https://lkml.org/lkml/2005/1/11/111 [2]: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/CodingGuidelines#L416 [3]: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/CodingGuidelines#L21 [4]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/216961