Re: [PATCH] sparse-checkout.txt: new document with sparse-checkout directions

[Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 8:44 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> "Elijah Newren via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > +  * Does the name --[no-]restrict sound good to others?  Are there better options?
>
> Everybody in this thread are interested in sparse checkout, which
> unfortunately blinds them from the fact that "restrict to", "limit
> to", "focus on", etc. need not to be limited to the sparse checkout
> feature.  We must have something that hints that the option is about
> the sparse checkout feature.
>
> As to the verbs, I do not mind "restrict to".  Other good ones I do
> not mind choosing are "limit to" and "focus on".  They would equally
> convey the same thing in this context.  And the object for these
> verb phrases are the area of interest, those paths without the
> skip-worktree bit, the paths outside the sparse cone(s).
>
> Or we could go the other way.  We are excluding those paths with the
> skip-worktree bit, so "exclude" and "ignore" are natural candidates.

If you're thinking about plain "exclude", that's already a flag in
'apply', 'am', 'clean', and 'ls-files'.

Also, if you want these words alone, then they also seem to lack hints
that the option is about the sparse checkout feature.  Expand them a
bit, perhaps?  "--ignore-sparsity"?
"--exclude-sparse-checkout-restrictions"?

Assuming we are worried about needing "--no-" variants, wouldn't the
risk of a "--no-ignore-sparsity" be worse than a "--no-restrict" in
terms of awkwardness, given the double negative?

> These two classes are good if the "restrict" behaviour will never be
> the default.  When it is the default, the option often used will
> become "--no-restrict", which is awkward.
>
>         Personally I am slightly in favor of "focus on" (i.e.
>         "--focus" vs "--unfocus") as that meshes well with the
>         concept of "the areas of the working tree paths that I am
>         interested in right now", which may already hint that the
>         option is about the sparse checkout feature (i.e. "I am
>         focusing on these areas right now") and can stay short.  But
>         this is just one person's opinion.

I'll add --focus/--unfocus to the list.  --unfocus seems a bit more
awkward to me than --no-restrict, but that might just be me.  If
others really liked it, I'd be fine with it.

Right now, I'm leaning a bit more towards Stolee's
--scope={sparse,all} (or maybe --scope={sparse,dense}?)