Re: [PATCH v3] build: add default aliases

[John Szakmeister <john@szakmeister.net>]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jeff King wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 02:20:21PM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>
>>> For now simply add a few common aliases.
>>>
>>>   co = checkout
>>>   ci = commit
>>>   rb = rebase
>>>   st = status
>>
>> Are these the best definitions of those shortcuts? It seems[1] that some
>> people define "ci" as "commit -a", and some people define "st" as
>> "status -s" or even "status -sb".
>
> I feel bad about having waited for 4 rounds of this patch to say this,
> but the basic change (providing "co", "ci", etc. as aliases by
> default) does not look well thought through.
>
> It would be a different story if this were a patch to update
> documentation to suggest adding such aliases at the same time as
> telling Git what your name is.  The user manual doesn't explain how to
> set up aliases at all yet, and that should be fixed.

Yes, better documentation around aliases would be a good idea.

> But making 'ci' a synonym of another command by default while still
> keeping its definition configurable would be doing people a
> disservice, I fear.  As long as 'ci' works out of the box, it will
> start showing up in examples and used in suggestions over IRC, etc,
> which is great.  Unfortunately that means that anyone who has 'ci'
> defined to mean something different can no longer use those examples,
> that advice from IRC, and so on.  So in the world where 'ci' is a
> synonym for 'commit' by default, while people still *can* redefine
> 'ci' to include whatever options they like (e.g., "-a"), actually
> carrying out such a personal customization is asking for trouble.

I'm not sure I agree.  Yes, if someone has configured their shortcut
differently, they may not be able to use the example exactly.  OTOH,
shells have aliases, and while there are sometimes problems, I think
most people overcome them.  I don't see the situation being very
different here.

FWIW, I'm not overly convinced one way or another.  What I can say is,
in the circles I run in, I can only think of one person has gone
without setting up aliases to commit (ci), status (st), and checkout
(co).  The full names are simply to long for day-to-day usage.

-John