bug#74509: Feature request - smerge-mode

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Branislav Zahradník <happy.barney@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2024 07:39:30 +0100
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, 74509@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> On Tue, 3 Dec 2024 at 04:26, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> 
>  >> >> # keybinding
>  >> >> would be nice to provide default keybinding for smerge-swap: C-c ^ s
>  >> Interesting.  I've never found a use for that command, personally.
>  >> Could you give some hint for the situations where you found it handy?
>  > Example:
>  > I keep my functions alphabetically ordered.
>  > When I merge two changes which added function in same alphabetical place,
>  > I often need to change their order.
> 
>  I see; makes sense!
> 
>  >> >> # smerge-extend
>  >> >> Helpful when user intent to keep both.
>  >> Sorry: to keep both what?
>  >
>  > Both = lower + upper.
>  >
>  > Using above example:
>  > when I intent to keep both functions, end of block (eg: C, Java, Perl, ...)
>  > will currently not appear twice,
> 
>  Really?  Here, when I merge two changes which both add a function at the
>  same place I get a conflict with the complete functions (with their
>  respective closing brace and trailing space if applicable). 
> 
>  >> Hmm... Why just one line and why only from the end?
>  > One line - one can use it multiple times to add more.
>  > And yes, you are right, it should accept numeric argument (negative for
>  > preceding line).
>  > Though I still believe common use case will be to extend with following.
> 
>  I guess a numeric argument could be handy (e.g. to handle the case of
>  extending from the front rather than from the end).
>  I had in mind a different UI where you move point to the "end" of the
>  extension (i.e. to right after the one-or-two lines you want to add to
>  the ends), but I guess that would be more clunky than what you have.
> 
>  >> [ Unless you specifically chose 2-way conflicts, I recommend you
>  >>   investigate how to get 3-way conflicts, because they give a lot more
>  >>   information and allow for example `smerge-resolve` to "just work" in
>  >>   more cases.  YMMV, but personally whenever I'm faced with a 2-way
>  >>   conflict, I'm frustrated.  ]
>  > Different experiences - I for example run mostly into 2-way conflicts
> 
>  Maybe it's because of
> 
>      % grep -B1 diff3  ~/.gitconfig
>      [merge]
>              conflictstyle = diff3
>      %
> 
>  🙂
> 
> As I said, everyone has different preferences and experiences.
> I'm trying to organize my code (diff-friendly programming) that way
> so only minimum number of lines / informations is changed so conflicts
> are usually easier to solve, including punctuation characters used by
> given programming language. That leads to small diffs, easy to solve,
> but with necessity of having this extend functionality.

How should we go about this bug report?  Can we make some progress
here?  Or should we close it as wontfix?