Re: remote#branch

From: Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>
Date: Oct 30, 2007, 03:01 UTC
Message-ID: <20071030030104.GK21133@thunk.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.999.0710291545250.30120@woody.linux-foundation.org>

On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 03:57:41PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Sure, but "URL" in human-speak has nothing to do with an RFC.
> 
> I dislike language-lawyerese. Why the hell do people think that human 
> language should follow the RFC's?
> 
> Git addresses look like URL's, and they act like URL's, but dammit, git 
> isn't a web browser, and it's not interested in acting like one.

The quoting rules aren't specific to a web browser; the whole point of URL's is that they are uniform so that programs know how to handle them without needing information specific to the URL type. Hence the quoting rules apply to all applications using URL's, whether it's CUPS using a url such as: ipp://example.com/printer/tiger/bob or LDAP using a url such as: ldap://ldap.example.com/dc=example,dc=com?postalAddress.

It's just git which is different here. Having a uniform set of processing rules are *useful* for applications and libraries that are parsing URL's, not just for language-lawyer wanking. Not that git addresses that are layered on top of http is all that well supported any more, but in that case we really are using an http-style URL --- but yet git doesn't do URL quoting, because, well, it doesn't. Yet in that case it's very clear the http address is really a URL, and it's arguably a defect that git doesn't handle an http address the way all other applications handle http URL's.

At the very least, if we aren't going to change git, we should hang a big fat sign in the documentation saying that although git location names that begin git:// look like URL's, and smell like URL's, they aren't treated the same way that all other applications treat URL's, and the user shouldn't be surprised by this. Furthermore, choosing pathnames so that git:// and gitweb http:// addresses don't require URL-style quoting, will probably save the user a fair amount of pain and confusion because git refuses to treat git addresses as URL's.

It would probably also be a good idea to expurgate URL's from the documentations, because, well, they aren't URL's. Git doesn't treat them like URL's, and you've said you aren't interested in changing git to treat them like URL's, and finally git:// isn't a registered URL scheme name with the IANA registration authority. So let's not call them URL's, since they're clearly not.

    	      	      	  	     - Ted