Re: [PATCH/RFC] commit: add short option for --amend

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy wrote:

> --- a/builtin/commit.c
> +++ b/builtin/commit.c
> @@ -1489,7 +1489,7 @@ int cmd_commit(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>  			    STATUS_FORMAT_LONG),
>  		OPT_BOOL('z', "null", &s.null_termination,
>  			 N_("terminate entries with NUL")),
> -		OPT_BOOL(0, "amend", &amend, N_("amend previous commit")),
> +		OPT_BOOL('j', "amend", &amend, N_("amend previous commit")),
[...]
> Thoughts?

I'm not a fan.  I would have trouble remembering what the short option
name means, and it matches the common --jobs option for parallelism
that many commands use.  "git commit --am" works today already and
doesn't run into those problems.

I'm sympathetic to the goal of saving typing, but I'm more sympathetic
to the goal of making user support easier, which is what makes me end
up there.

That said, I've been looking recently at Mercurial's "hg evolve"
extension[1] and I wouldn't be against a well thought out new command
(e.g. "git amend") that does the equivalent of "git commit --amend"
with some related features.  So I think there are some paths forward
that involve abbreviating.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[1] https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/EvolveExtension