Re: [PATCH 2/2] Add keyword unexpansion support to convert.c

From: Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 17, 2007, 19:12 UTC
Message-ID: <200704172012.31280.andyparkins@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0704171107510.5473@woody.linux-foundation.org>

On Tuesday 2007, April 17, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> So you will never work with anybody outside of git?

For my projects - correct; I don't care about the rest of the world. For projects that do - don't enable keywords, it's an option, all I want is to have that option.

> What about tar-files when you export the tree? Should they have the
> expanded version?

If I have to pick one then: no. I think out-of-tree keywords are too much trouble for exactly the reasons you say; however, I wouldn't like to presume what other people think is too much trouble so I suppose it would have to be an option.

Show 7 quoted lines

> > You keep saying these sweepingly general things.  It can be made to
> > work.
>
> No, it CANNOT.
>
> Trust me. There's NO WAY IN HELL it will "work" in any other sense
> than "limp along and not be usable".

Well I'm making progress, "limp along" is a significant step up from impossible. :-)

Look, my primary objection to this is the SHOUTING about how impossible it is even though I've tried to address every problem you've thrown at me - I'm finding it really difficult to figure out why you're trying so hard to dissuade me from even _trying_. If it all goes wrong (as I fully accept it might), so be it, I can live with that; I'll even be happy to tell you you're right and I'm wrong. Why is this such a problem?

Keywords are so hated by everyone that I doubt they would ever be accepted into git - it's an intellectual exercise for me at this stage really.

> Yes, you can make it "work" if you:
>
>  - make sure that you never _ever_ leave the git environment

As it happens, _I_ never ever leave the git environment. Can I use keywords then?

You don't seem to have such a problem with git's extended diffs for renames or subprojects - "make sure that you never _ever_ leave the git environment".

>    But why do you want keyword expansion then? The whole point is if
> you have other tools than the git tools that look at a file. Even
> your svg example was literally about having non-git tools work with
> the data. What if you ever email the file to somebody else?

If by "tools" you mean other version control systems, then I don't intend them to work. If by "tools" you mean gcc, inkscape, gv, bash, web browsers or any other fileformat that allows comments in the file then I expect it to be fine. If I publish a web page, it'd be nice to show the ID on the page - that's all just "nice" not "necessary" or "I'm throwing git away if I don't get it".

Emailing to others isn't a problem either: let's say I email them my SVG (with keywords expanded), they make some edits and send it me back - worse, they send me a diff back. I'm going to apply that diff using git-apply; which will collapse the keywords and apply the diff.

>  - you make all git tools explicitly always strip them.

Well, not "all", so far I've added one call to convert_to_git() in builtin-apply.c - it was a one line addition. It needed doing anyway to deal with the CRLF correctly. I can't see there being that many places that this needs doing. I may well be wrong, if I end up scattering calls to convert_to_git() everywhere I'll give up.

>    Again, what's the point again? You add keyword expansion, and then
> the only tools that you really allow to touch it (except your "print
> it out" example) will have to remove the keyword expansion just to
> work.

(I don't see why my tiny "print it out" example isn't enough - it matters to me)

However, most tools don't care about the keywords, it's only non-git diff and non-git patch that are affected. As long as the file format supports comments, then keyword expansion will be just fine.

> That's not "work". That's just stupid. Yes, you can make your "print
> it out" example work, but as alreadyt mentioned, you could have done
> that some other way, with a simple makefile rule, quite independently
> (and much better) than the SCM ever did.

That's just being obtuse - no other tool cares in the slightest about the keywords, there are more "tools" in the world than just the VCS.

Andy

-- 
Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIET
andyparkins@gmail.com