Re: [PATCH v2 02/14] pull: improve default warning

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
To: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Cc: "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox.com>,
	"Jacob Keller" <jacob.keller@gmail.com>,
	"Git Mailing List" <git@vger.kernel.org>,
	"Vít Ondruch" <vondruch@redhat.com>,
	"Alex Henrie" <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>,
	"Jeff King" <peff@peff.net>,
	"Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.email>,
	"Theodore Y . Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>,
	"John Keeping" <john@keeping.me.uk>,
	"Richard Hansen" <rhansen@rhansen.org>,
	"Brian M. Carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>,
	"W. Trevor King" <wking@tremily.us>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 02/14] pull: improve default warning
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2020 20:39:07 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAMP44s2zEi7WqiwZMN8CRzjQ+1CjPpagpTqhAtX9Vx4a5XKoWg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CABPp-BGZcmHhge7JnM12baL_86yV-+7z4kkvFwUUrP+db8QD8Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hello,

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 1:05 PM Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 1:53 AM Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:

> > I could do some mail archeology if you want, but this issue starts to
> > be mentioned at least since 2010, and virtually everyone (except one
> > person) agreed the default must change, even Linus Torvalds. Reading
> > back what Linus said [5], it's something very, *very* close to what
> > I'm proposing (I would argue my proposal is better).
> >
> > So you let me know. Do you want me to dig a decade of discussions and
> > coalesce those conclusions into a summary so we can decide how to
> > proceed? Or should I drop the plan? Only that if we drop it, I
> > *guarantee* we will discuss it yet again years later.
> >
> > Moreover, this is the reason why I split the series in 3. Even if you
> > decide you don't want to change the default, part I of the series can
> > still be merged *today*, and everyone would benefit.
>
> Have I missed some subtlety here?  This whole email appears to me to
> be arguing against a strawman.  Reading Junio's other emails in this
> thread[1][2], it's pretty clear he thinks the current behavior is
> buggy and suggests how it should be changed.  From what I can tell,
> you appear to be arguing against doing nothing and against only
> accepting perfection, neither of which were positions I saw anyone
> take.  In fact, the positions you argue for at length appear to
> exactly match the ones he took[1][2].  What am I missing?

People change their minds.

Perhaps I misinterpreted something, but when Junio said "I dunno" I
take it to mean: he is unsure my proposal "pull.mode=ff-only" makes
sense. He also said "for anybody who uses git for real, [force
-ff-only] would be pretty much a useless default", which I take it to
mean that perhaps we shouldn't change the default to that.

Back in 2013 Junio said "I now see how such a default makes sense."
[1], but we are in 2020 and such a default that made sense is not the
default.

Mind reading is a really bad habbit [2]; I don't know what other
people think, and I would not presume to know.

All I know is that the path forward is unclear. And because I
prognosticated that, I split the series in 3 parts, and I've yet to
see any objection to part I, which would improve the situation for
users *today*.

So, while we make up our collective minds, there's no reason to bother
our users with an annoying warning on *every* *single* *pull*.

Cheers.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/7vli74baym.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org/
[2] https://cogbtherapy.com/cbt-blog/common-cognitive-distortions-mind-reading

-- 
Felipe Contreras