Re: [PATCH] Have a flag to stop the option parsing at the first argument.

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi,

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Wincent Colaiuta wrote:

> Yes, we know what it does because we know that "git ... log ..." is 
> actually two commands and each one handles one of the -p switches, but 
> it is much easier to present git as a single tool to the newcomer (and I 
> guess I don't need to argue that case here seeing as the decision has 
> already been taken long ago to talk using dashless forms), and it is 
> much easier to explain to a newcomer something like:
> 
> git log --paginate -p
> 
> Than:
> 
> git -p log -p

How about

	git log -p

Hmm?

Fact is: you make the tool easier by having sane defaults.  Not by moving 
around command line options.  The option "-p" for git is an option that 
holds for _all_ subcommands.  That's why it belongs _before_ the 
subcommand.

> But it doesn't really matter. The proposed changes allow old-timers to 
> continue putting their special options between the "git" and the 
> "command". If you don't want to deprecate the -p special because of the 
> confusion it might cause, I think we should at least not give it a very 
> prominent place in the documentation, nor use it any examples.

I think it is wrong to go out of our way to support "git status -p" as a 
synonym to "git -p status".  I simply do not believe that newcomers are 
not intelligent enough to understand that "git -p <subcommand>" means that 
the output goes into their pager.

Ciao,
Dscho