Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> writes: > Hi Junio, > > On Wed, 15 May 2019, Junio C Hamano wrote: > >> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> writes: >> >> I was imagining what would happen if we treat _everything_ in the two >> directories being compared by "difftool --dir-diff --no-index" as if it >> is tracked. > > Isn't this exactly what `git difftool --no-index` *without* `--dir-diff` > does already (although without copying or hardlinking or symlinking any > files)? If that is the case, then I would imagine that running that command for the user, instead of refusing to work, would give a more pleasant end-user experience. No? Unless we anticipate that we might dwim incorrectly and mistake a request to compare two things, to which the distinction between tracked and untracked matters, as a request to compare two directories that are not under Git control, that is. If such an incorrect dwim were a possibility, then it is helpful to refuse with "when comparing two non-git-controlled directories, you cannot use the '--dir-diff' mode", as that would not silently give an incorrect output to the users. In any case, all of the above can be left for future improvements. Getting close to the final, I think it is preferrable to have a "refuse to stop early" (i.e. the patch that is already in 'next') instead of "do what the user meant" whose implementation may become more involved (and error prone). Thanks.