On Fri, 20 Dec 2019 at 13:21, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > "This is similar to ls" is not all that important, especially if we > then need to say how different from "ls" ours is. The log message > that describes why we needed to move away from "ls" is a good place > to say what aspect of "ls" was unsuitable. Ok, I'm also happy if it goes in with no comment; the reason I added it is I could foresee someone coming along in a few years, thinking this is just a strange local implementation of ls, and changing it. But, perhaps we can assume that any such person would check the history before doing so and the comment is not needed. > If we _were_ to add an in-code comment, we may want to say something > like > > # Do not replace this with "cd "$1" && ls", as FreeBSD "ls" > # enables "-A" when run by root without being told, and ends > # up including ".git" etc. in its output. > > to warn future developers against improving and/or cleaning up. Indeed, that is more direct, although it's not just FreeBSD ls; this came from 4.2BSD and is probably common to most/all non-GNU ls implementations. In particular, macOS behaves the same way. (Also, the replacement would be even simpler, just "ls $1".)
