Re: [PATCH v2] revision traversal: show full history with merge simplification

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
> If you look at the output from the "kernel/printk.c" with this patch, you
> would notice that there still are somewhat meaningless merges shown in the
> history (e.g. scroll down to 185a257f2f73bcd89050ad02da5bedbc28fc43fa).

They're not really meaningless.

Yes, they are pointless for the end result, but once you start showing 
that whole pointless branch they very much are needed for a complete view 
of the "shape" of history. The merges are real points on that branch where 
printk changed because it got updates from mainlines.

So either you should have the full simplification (which only shows stuff 
that is really meaningful for the end result), or you need for those 
"pointless" merges to remain (because you show the changes that happened 
on side branches).

I obviously believe that the full simplification is what you most often 
want, but the --post-simplify thing does make sense.

(And yes, I agree that the name should be something else, and that 
--simplify-merges makes more sense. The "post-simplify" thing is an 
implementation issue, and doesn't describe what the effect is. And with 
your incremental one, even that isn't true).

			Linus