Re: smerge-ediff "MINE" and "OTHER" monikers unhelpful

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

> Of course, any tool is free top put the 2 in whichever order they
> prefer.  Maybe we should revisit the MINE/OTHER names used so far.
> But whichever name we use there will need to also be present in
> smerge-ediff.

Whenever you use _meaning_-carrying names, they'll be wrong half of the
time.  Ediff got that right with A, B, and, uh, C?  No idea (rarely use
three-way conflicts).  It's arbitrary what the first and the second
_mean_, so you just put them first and second on screen and give them A
and B as monikers.

And since nobody would suspect that you have first B, then A, even
omitting them from the mode lines works fine.

The only reliable _meaning_ is, if at all, in the conflict markers.

For a straightforward diff (rather than a conflict merge), again it's
natural to have the original before the diff left, and the patched file
right.

If the user has to puzzle out how additional, differently named and
actually _unrelated_ information relates to the buffer names, stuff
becomes hard.

I don't actually care all that much whether you want to make smerge-mode
an intellectual challenge, but I'm using smerge-ediff alone all the
time, and there "MINE" and "OTHER" are a clearly entirely unhelpful
distraction.

-- 
David Kastrup