Re: fixing workdirs

Pierre Habouzit <madcoder_madism.org> said (on 2010/07/08):

#include <std-symlink-rant>

On programs (like git) pretending to be cross-platform, symlinks should be avoided. They are to varying degrees, painful on non-*nix operating systems.

Windows is an especially compatibility-breaking example, not only on the programming side, but also in relation to user interface, and compatibility with other programs. Programming-wise, documentation is sparse and would require lots of platform-specific work-arounds. The user-interface support is worse than terrible. And even if git does everything right, there's no guarantee a copy, backup/restore, antivirus program, etc. won't come along and corrupt the environment git so carefully created. Many of those other programs don't properly handle Windows reparse points. For those interested, http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=284 gives a reasonable-looking overview of the details on Windows.