Re: [RFCv3 1/2] gitweb: add patch view

["Giuseppe Bilotta" <giuseppe.bilotta@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 1:46 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> +    # The maximum number of patches in a patchset generated in patch
>>> +    # view. Set this to 0 or undef to disable patch view, or to a
>>> +    # negative number to remove any limit.
>>> +    'patches' => {
>>> +            'override' => 1,
>>> +            'default' => [16]},
>>>  );
>>
>> You need to set "'sub' => \&feature_patches" for feature to be
>> override-able at all.  Also features are usually not overridable
>> by default, which reduces load a tiny bit (by _possibly_ not reading
>> config, although that shouldn't matter much now with reading whole
>> commit using single call to git-config, and not one call per variable).
>> And I think the default might be set larger: 'log' view generates
>> as big if not bigger load, and it is split into 100 commits long
>> pages.
>
> I do not think defaulting to 'no' for overridability nor defaulting a new
> feature to 'disabled' have much to do with the load, but they are more
> about the principle of least surprise.  Somebody who runs gitweb in the
> playpen he was given on the server shouldn't be getting a phone call from
> his users late at night complaining that the page his gitweb serves look
> different and has one extra link per each line, only because the sysadmin
> of the server decided to update git to 1.6.1 without telling him.
>
> Once a new version capable of serving a new feature is introduced, he can
> plan, announce and deploy by switching the feature on in his gitweb
> configuration file.
>
> Some things, like sitewide default css changes, cannot be made disabled
> by default.  But a new feature can easily be kept disabled by default not
> to cause needless surprises.

In the eternal war between making feature easily available and not
disturbing the user too much between upgrades, I'm more on the 'making
available' field, especially when the features are not particularly
invasive (e.g., the patch view only adds one single link, on the
navigation bar, and only in some views).

It should also be noted that if the sysadmin deploys a new software
version without telling its users, there's an obvious communication
problem between the sysadmin and its users, but that's not something
the tool developers should try to work around. Otherwise we'd still be
offering the dash version of the commands by default.

(Plus, weren't you the one suggesting that the remote heads feature
should be enabled by default? And that's an even more invasive change,
if you ask me.)


-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta