As measured on linux.git, adding --date-order to a log command can result in a significant slowdown (~25x here; I've seen ~100x on other repositories): $ time git log --first-parent --max-count=51 master > /dev/null real 0m0.024s user 0m0.006s sys 0m0.016s $ time git log --date-order --first-parent --max-count=51 master > /dev/null real 0m0.652s user 0m0.570s sys 0m0.074s In combination with --first-parent, --date-order (or any other ordering option) should be a no-op, since --first-parent selects a linear history. So it seems like there's a significant performance win available by ignoring ordering options when --first-parent is present. Would this change be desirable? If so, I'll see about submitting a patch. More generally, it seems like it might be possible to identify when the selected commits are linear and avoid the cost of sorting. Josiah -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html