[Open discussion on idea] Git shell prompt daemon

[Mikolaj Izdebski]

On 03/31/2014 11:59 AM, Tim Niemueller wrote:
> Am 30.03.2014 15:24, schrieb Lukky513:
>> Hi, I'm Łukasz Raszka - also applying for the very same project. I
>> wanted to address some of the concerns.
>>
>>> The preferred way for me is "something from bashrc/etc."
>>> However, I don't know how to change prompt dynamically when user
>>> doesn't run any commands/press keys.
>> IIRC, zsh has some facilities allowing it to be done; I don't think it'd
>> be a good idea, though. Personally, I just like the reactive prompt
>> better than proactive one - it's not that good to stop in the middle of
>> typing because something changed - especially in case such as this, when
>> daemon actions ought to be passive in their nature (providing status
>> information rather than actually doing anything). And there's always the
>> line feed if someone wants updated info.
> 
> This sounds like looking into screen's feature to have a persistent
> status bar at the bottom. It might seem we would want something like
> this. What annoys me often, for example, is that when I switch branches
> in one directory it is reflected in another terminal only after the
> prompt is re-drawn, e.g. on "Enter" or the next command.

I personally like to have the status exactly where I am looking when
typing command.  It may be easy to miss status change if it is displayed
at the bottom of the window or somewhere else.

Besides that shell prompt is portable and can be implemented almost
everywhere.  Not everyone is using (GNU) screen.

> I still find the project under-specified and too open ended. I'm missing
> a draft of what, how, and when.

My description is only an idea of a project.  Much more details
(including timelines) were included by students in their proposals.

-- 
Mikolaj Izdebski
Software Engineer, Red Hat
IRC: mizdebsk