I might have been ignorant about something about git in my reply in the previous email (found below). In that case, please enlighten me. On Wed, 2017-06-28 at 18:34 +0530, Kaartic Sivaraam wrote: > On Tue, 2017-06-27 at 10:56 -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > Kaartic Sivaraam <kaarticsivaraam91196@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > I thought it's not good to trade-off readability for vertical > > > space > > > as > > > the ultimate aim of the commit template (at least to me) is to > > > convey > > > information to the user about the commit that he's going to make. > > > For > > > which, I thought it made more sense to improve it's readability > > > by > > > adding new lines between different sections rather than constrain > > > the > > > output within a few lines. > > > > You have to be careful when making a trade-off argument. It > > depends > > on how familiar you already are with the presentation. Those who > > are/got used to the order of things that come, they will know there > > is extra information when the block of lines are longer than usual > > without reading every character and then their eyes are guided to > > read what is extra, without having to waste precious screen real > > estate. Nobody will _stay_ a new user who is not yet familiar with > > the everyday output. > > > > You're right. I didn't consider the fact that experienced users would > be affected as a result of this change, sorry about that. I thought, > making this change would help the new users who would possibly find > the > commit template to be congested and let experienced users to get > accustomed to this new output format. I thought this change would be > a > win-win (at least after people get accustomed to the new > formatting). > > In case screen real estate is considered more important here, no > issues. I'll drop that part of the change, happily. > > > > I actually didn't think of modifying that in order to keep it in > > > line > > > with the output of `git status`. > > > > I was (and still am) assuming that if we make this change to "git > > commit", we should make matching change to "git status" as a given. > > I get it now. In that case, I don't think making the change would be > a > good choice for the following reasons, > > * I think vertical spacing matters more in the output printed to > a > console. > * I myself find it odd to add a new line below the branch > information possibly because I'm too accustomed to it's current > output. > > I tried adding the new line, it seemed to be too spacious. It might > be > just me in this case. > > > > Further, to me, adding *this* new line > > > before the "Changes not staged for commit" (or something in it's > > > place) > > > seems to be wasting some vertical space ... > > > > I think it is in line with your original reasoning why you wanted > > these extra blank lines to separate blocks of different kinds of > > information: > > > > - "Please do this" instruction at the beginning > > - Make sure you know the default is --only, not --include > > - By the way you are committing for that person, not you > > - This change is being committed on that branch > > - Here are the changes that are already in the index > > - Here are the changes that are not in the index > > - Here are untracked files > > > > Lack of a blank between the fourth block and the fifth block [*1*] > > makes it somewhat inconsistent, doesn't it? > > > > It does, for the given set of blocks. I didn't find it inconsistent > as > I thought the separate blocks as follows, > > - "Please do this" instruction at the beginning > - Make sure you know the default is --only, not --include > - By the way you are committing for that person, not you > - Status of repository (git status) > > > [Footnote] > > > > *1* Yes, we should think about removing the optional second block, > > as I think that it outlived its usefulness; if we are to do so, > > these become the third and the fourth blocks. > > If I interpreted your previous email correctly, I thought we were > doing > it! > > I'll send a "typical" patch as a follow-up of this mail. >