Re: [RFC PATCH, WAS: "weird diff output?" 2/2] xdiff: implement empty line chunk heuristic

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:

>> +diff.emptyLineHeuristic::
>
> I was looking at the TODO here and thought about the name:
> It should not encode the `emptyLine` into the config option as
> it is only one of many heuristics.
>
> It should be something like `diff.heuristic=lastEmptyLine`
> The we could add firstEmptyLine, aggressiveUp, aggressiveDown,
> breakAtShortestLineLength or other styles as well later on.
>
> I do not quite understand the difference between diff.algorithm
> and the newly proposed heuristic as the heuristic is part of
> the algorithm? So I guess we'd need to have some documentation
> saying how these differ. (fundamental algorithm vs last minute
> style fixup?)

I actually do not think these knobs should exist when the code is
mature enough to be shipped to the end users.

Use "diff.compactionHeuristics = <uint>" as an opaque set of bits to
help the developers while they compare notes and reach consensus on
a single tweak that they can agree on being good enough, and then
remove that variable before the code hits 'next'.

Thanks.