Re: suggestion for /usr/src/UPDATING

From: Brooks Davis <brooks_at_one-eyed-alien.net>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:31:31 -0700
On Tue, Aug 31, 2004 at 04:20:21PM -0400, Charles Swiger wrote:
> On Aug 31, 2004, at 3:53 PM, Brooks Davis wrote:
> >On Tue, Aug 31, 2004 at 03:49:28PM -0400, Charles Swiger wrote:
> >>OK.  Submitted as gnu/71210, diffs to the code are at:
> >>
> >>http://www.pkix.net/~chuck/sdiff.diff
> >>
> >>...since the PR may have space-stuffed tabs.
> >
> >The environment variable seems like a good idea.  Changing the default
> >is a very bad one.  My finger memory is just fine with sdiff and a
> >change would suck.
> 
> While I agree that preserving reasonable defaults should be done, there 
> seems to be serious disagreement as to whether the current defaults 
> actually do make sense.  :-)
> 
> I am content to let any interested committer make that decision, but I 
> ask that  whoever first go through a trial mergemaster session using 
> '1' & '2' as the keys.  'q' and 'e' are right there, and I found the 
> improvement compared to using 'l' & 'r' immediately obvious and more 
> intuitive.

I agree the current default is confusing and counterintuitive, at least
at first.  That's not the point.  The point is that it's been that way
for ages and changing it would gratuitously screw all the users who have
adapted to it.  There's no reason why you couldn't preserve the old
behavior by default and in fact I'd request a back out of any commit
that didn't.  I don't opposes adding a second set of keys such as 1 and
2, just breaking the old behavior.

On the personal preference front, on a bad RSI day, forcing me to use
my left hand in that corner of the keyboard for a large merge (say the
whitespace at EOL or nojail changes) would cause me serious pain. :-P

-- Brooks

-- 
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Received on Tue Aug 31 2004 - 18:31:21 UTC

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