From: Luben Tuikov <ltuikov@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:29:56 GMT
Subject: Re: VCS comparison table
Message-ID: <20061017002956.79736.qmail@web31807.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0610161625370.3962@g5.osdl.org>

--- Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:
> Well, in the git world, it's really just one shared repository that has 
> separate branch-namespaces, and separate working trees (aka "checkouts"). 
> So yes, it probably matches what bazaar would call a checkout.
> 
> Almost nobody seems to actually use it that way in git - it's mostly more 
> efficient to just have five different branches in the same working tree, 
> and switch between them. When you switch between branches in git, git only 
> rewrites the part of your working tree that actually changed, so switching 
> is extremely efficient even with a large repo. 
> 
> So there is seldom any real need or reason to actually have multiple 
> checkouts. But it certainly _works_.

It does work, very well at that.

I have a directory for each separate branch and simply use
cd(1) to change the current working directory to that branch.
So, instead of "git checkout <branch>", I do "cd ../<branch>".

One only needs to watch out when one updates the repository.
If there had been updates in those branches, then one needs
to git-reset the "branch" directory... (you know what I mean)
(For example when I come to work in the morning an sync up
 with home from my usb key...)

The script is called:
Usage: git-mkdir-of-branch <original-directory> <branch> <new-directory>
  where <branch> is the name of an existing branch in <original-directory>/.git/refs/heads

and uses simple symbolic links and some git plumbing to do the
job.  It can be found in my git trees.  I never bothered to send
it out to Junio, since it could be considered heretic. ;-)

     Luben