Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >> Now, the existing message really sucks, we should really should >> buffering this up somehow and saying "here's the problem with these N >> files\n<list of N>". > ... > Thanks for the extensive feedback. So, there are two problems here: > > 1. The current warning is very confusingly worded > > 2. The current warning is repetitive if there are a lot of files > > For the moment, I'm only trying to address problem #1. Junio asked for > the file name to be moved to near the beginning of the message and for > the second sentence to be removed. Tao asked to avoid the verb "check > out" and said that "touch" was better. What wording would you suggest? Heh, I do not ask contributors to do anything. When there is only one right way to write a code, I may tell them to do exactly that way, but that is rare. I only suggest an alternative or two and have contributors to think themselves. Ah, I am asking them to think for themselves in that case, but that does not count ;-) Anyway. I do not have a strong opinion between checkout and touch myself. Switching to "touch" did make it less technically incorrect than saying "checkout" by making it a bit more vague, which can cut both ways, but if "touch" can squelch complaints from hair-splitters like "I did 'git checkout' (no arguments) immediately after I saw the message but nothing changed", that may be a good change. Between "we have a problem with long description in 'this file'" that pushes the most crucial information to the far right in the output that is necessary to tell where to look for the problem, and "in 'this file', we have a problem with long description", I would imagine that readers prefer to see the former, simply because it lets them spot the pathname easier. The repetitiveness is an issue that may need to be addressed separately, and the repetitiveness might make it look as if repeating the long problem description in the front part of the message is better by aligning the repetitive message and by numbing readers' mind, but I do not think that benefit outweighs the downside of hiding more important information by pushing it far to the right. Just my two cents.
