Re: Extra blank lines in "git status" output have been reduced

Re: Extra blank lines in "git status" output have been reduced

[Pete Boere]

With the release of v2.23 I have noticed from the commit:
7b098429355bb3271f9ffdf73b97f2ef82794fea

With message:
"Extra blank lines in "git status" output have been reduced."

https://git.furworks.de/opensourcemirror/git/commit/7b098429355bb3271f9ffdf73b97f2ef82794fea

Is there any chance of adding them back? The changed layout has been
throwing me off ever since upgrading.

Thanks
Pete Boere

Re: Extra blank lines in "git status" output have been reduced

[Junio C Hamano]

Pete Boere <pete@duel.me> writes:

> With the release of v2.23 I have noticed from the commit:
> 7b098429355bb3271f9ffdf73b97f2ef82794fea
> ...
> Is there any chance of adding them back? The changed layout has been
> throwing me off ever since upgrading.

Sorry, but it is way too late to complain, generally after a change
hits a release, and especially after it got buried under 8 new major
releases.  Unless a change was an unintended side-effect that we did
not mean to make, in which case we would likely to fix it as a bug.

And the change in question b2f5171e (status: remove the empty line
after hints, 2019-06-04) quite deliberately targets at removing
these extra lines [*], so no, I do not think it is reasonable to
expect reverting that commit that is more than a year old.

You may want to join the list discussion and stop whatever UI change
you find undesirable before it materializes next time.


[Reference]

commit b2f5171ecc2feb4192acd80f5a6b05c06e099e97
Author: John Lin <johnlinp@gmail.com>
Date:   Tue Jun 4 07:02:21 2019 -0700

    status: remove the empty line after hints
    
    Before this patch, there is inconsistency between the status
    messages with hints and the ones without hints: there is an
    empty line between the title and the file list if hints are
    presented, but there isn't one if there are no hints.
    
    This patch remove the inconsistency by removing the empty
    lines even if hints are presented.

Re: Extra blank lines in "git status" output have been reduced

[Jeff King]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 12:38:42PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Pete Boere <pete@duel.me> writes:
> 
> > With the release of v2.23 I have noticed from the commit:
> > 7b098429355bb3271f9ffdf73b97f2ef82794fea
> > ...
> > Is there any chance of adding them back? The changed layout has been
> > throwing me off ever since upgrading.
> 
> Sorry, but it is way too late to complain, generally after a change
> hits a release, and especially after it got buried under 8 new major
> releases.  Unless a change was an unintended side-effect that we did
> not mean to make, in which case we would likely to fix it as a bug.
> 
> And the change in question b2f5171e (status: remove the empty line
> after hints, 2019-06-04) quite deliberately targets at removing
> these extra lines [*], so no, I do not think it is reasonable to
> expect reverting that commit that is more than a year old.
> 
> You may want to join the list discussion and stop whatever UI change
> you find undesirable before it materializes next time.

If we discover later that some portion of users prefer an older
behavior, it may be reasonable to build on top with a config option to
allow selecting the old or the new. The inputs to "may be reasonable"
there are:

  - how big is the code burden to support both behaviors? In this case,
    I don't think it's too bad; it's restoring the old newlines with a
    conditional

  - how many people would actually care enough to set the option? Even
    without a lot of code, each option is _some_ burden to carry, both
    in the code and in the overall complexity of the interface. I'm less
    convinced in this particular case that a lot of people care (given a
    single comment after many releases), but perhaps those interested in
    the change could produce data (note I said "data", not "argue more
    vigorously" ;) ).

    It might help justify such an option if it applied in more places.
    E.g., an option for "I prefer the look of lots of whitespace in
    messages" versus "I prefer a more compact look".

-Peff

Re: Extra blank lines in "git status" output have been reduced

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 12:38:42PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> ...
>> You may want to join the list discussion and stop whatever UI change
>> you find undesirable before it materializes next time.
>
> If we discover later that some portion of users prefer an older
> behavior, it may be reasonable to build on top with a config option to
> allow selecting the old or the new.

True.  I do not think this one passes the bar, as the porcelain UI
is subject to change, and it is not worth flipping and flopping
every few years.

>   - how big is the code burden to support both behaviors? In this case,
>     I don't think it's too bad; it's restoring the old newlines with a
>     conditional

Accumulated little cuts will start hurting someday, though.

I think the change was done to make the output consistent between
two cases (with or without "use X to do Y" hints), so it won't be
sufficient to conditionally revert with a switch.  An option to add
these blank lines back would also have to add extra blank lines to
places where there was (and is) no blank line, so it is more like a
new development than a partial reversion.

cf. https://lore.kernel.org/git/?q=d%3A20190415..20190615+f%3Ajohnlinp%40gmail.com

>   - how many people would actually care enough to set the option? Even
>     without a lot of code, each option is _some_ burden to carry, both
>     in the code and in the overall complexity of the interface. I'm less
>     convinced in this particular case that a lot of people care (given a
>     single comment after many releases), but perhaps those interested in
>     the change could produce data (note I said "data", not "argue more
>     vigorously" ;) ).

;-)