Re: email address handling

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

On Fri, 1 Aug 2008, Andrew Morton wrote:
> 
> Well, what I'm saying is that it was an incorrect design decision.

And I'm saying that I disagree. 

> Yesterday, I copied and pasted what _looked_ like a usable
> name+email-address from some git output and into an MUA.  Unlike the
> thousands of preceding times, it did not work.
> 
> I think it was reasonable of me to assume that it would work.  Blaming
> the surprised and misled user for not understanding some earlier
> internal design decision didn't satisfy him!
> 
> True story!  From a user.

Hey, there are tons of surprises in life. Users make mistakes and 
assumptions that turn out to not be true. If you think you can avoid all 
such issues, I think you aren't living in the real world.

You'll be shocked to hear that even the so-called _email_ address isn't 
necessarily valid at all at times. Look closer, and you'll find email 
addresses that don't work at all. It turns out that if you don't set it 
explicitly, git will guess, and sometimes the end result won't actually 
work as an email address.

Beign surprised and then saying "I was surprised, so the whole design is 
broken" - that's a very silly standpoint to make. I suggest you 
reconsider. How many times have you had people "surprised" by correct 
kernel behaviour? Happens all the time.

Do you think they are all indicative of bad design, or maybe just "welcome 
to the real world - your preconceived notions didn't turn out to be 
accurate after all"?

It's a design decision to show the name as readably as possible. One that 
I think was correct.

			Linus