Re: [PATCH 0/8] Add 'ls-files --json' to dump the index in json

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi Peff & Junio,

On Fri, 21 Jun 2019, Jeff King wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 08:10:58AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
> > Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > Considering the amount of code to output these, supporting multiple
> > > formats would be a nightmare. I may be ok with versioning the output
> > > so the tool know what format they need to deal with, but I'd rather
> > > support just one version. For third parties wanting to dig deep, I
> > > think libgit2 would be a much better fit.
> >
> > Yeah, I think starting with --debug=json (or --debug-json) until we
> > see some stability in the output and got comfortable to the idea of
> > "version X" to mean what we output at that point, and then renaming
> > it to "--json" with "version: 1" in the output stream so that third
> > party can use it (and interpret it according to version 1 rules) is
> > the way to go.  Third-party tools are welcome to read --debug-json
> > output as an early-adoption practice waiting for the real thing, but
> > we do not want to be locked into a schema too eary before we are
> > ready.
>
> I should have read the whole thread before responding. I made a similar
> comment to Dscho, so I guess that is now two of us. :)

It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. You want the format to
stabilize. But you also don't want to commit to one final format. And you
choose as option name a deliberately discouraging one, deterring the
(third-party application) developers who could most help you evolve the
format to a sensible and useful stable version.

Ciao,
Dscho