Return-Path: <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand
	id S1752018Ab3J0IUb (ORCPT <rfc822;w@1wt.eu>);
	Sun, 27 Oct 2013 04:20:31 -0400
Received: from psi.thgersdorf.net ([176.9.98.78]:52213 "EHLO mail.psioc.net"
	rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP
	id S1751039Ab3J0IUY (ORCPT <rfc822;linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>);
	Sun, 27 Oct 2013 04:20:24 -0400
X-Greylist: delayed 638 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 04:20:24 EDT
From: Thomas Rast <tr@thomasrast.ch>
To: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
Cc: Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>, git@vger.kernel.org,
        Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>,
        ksummit-2013-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org,
        ksummit-attendees@lists.linuxfoundation.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] commit: Add -f, --fixes <commit> option to add Fixes: line
References: <20131024122255.GI9378@mwanda> <20131024122512.GB9534@mwanda>
	<20131026181709.GB10488@kroah.com> <20131027013402.GA7146@leaf>
	<526CA7D4.1070904@alum.mit.edu> <20131027071407.GA11683@leaf>
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 09:09:32 +0100
In-Reply-To: <20131027071407.GA11683@leaf> (Josh Triplett's message of "Sun,
	27 Oct 2013 07:14:07 +0000")
Message-ID: <874n83m8xv.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net>
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.2 (gnu/linux)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
List-ID: <linux-kernel.vger.kernel.org>
X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 1954
Lines: 44

Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> writes:

> On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 06:42:44AM +0100, Michael Haggerty wrote:
>> But I don't think that this feature should be given the "-f" short
>> option, as (a) -f often means "force"; (b) it will increase the
>> confusion with --fixup; (c) it just doesn't strike me as being likely to
>> be such a frequently-used option (though if this changes over time the
>> "-f" option could always be granted to it later).
>
> (a) -n often means --dry-run, but for commit it means --no-verify.
> Different commands have different options, and commit doesn't have a
> --force to abbreviate as -f.
>
> (b) If anything, I think the existence of a short option will make the
> distinction more obvious, since -f and --fixup are much less similar
> than --fixes and --fixup.  Most users will never type --fixes, making
> confusion unlikely.
>
> (c) Short option letters tend to be first-come first-serve unless
> there's a strong reason to do otherwise.  Why reserve 'f' for some
> hypothetical future option that doesn't exist yet?

No, lately the direction in Git has been to avoid giving options a
one-letter shorthand until they have proven so useful that people using
it in the wild start to suggest that it should have one.

See e.g.

  http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/233998
  http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/168748

A much better argument would be if it was already clear from the specs
laid out for Fixes that n% of the kernel commits will end up having this
footer, and thus kernel hackers will spend x amount of time spelling out
--fixes and/or confusing it with --fixup to much headache.

-- 
Thomas Rast
tr@thomasrast.ch
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/