Re: Tracking file metadata in git -- fix metastore or enhance git?

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 18, 2011, 00:45 UTC
Message-ID: <20110418004550.GA2529@elie>
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTimTszUC+4d3tMTP-cxG3AoWmr08HA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi again,

Not sure if my thoughts will be useful here since you dropped me from the cc list. But anyway:

Richard Hartmann wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> here are the three options:
>
> 1) fix metastore
> 2) default to gitperms
> 3) extend git
>
> I still think 3) would be best, but someone would need to step up to
> do this. Is anyone up for this task? If not, we will have to resort to
> 1) or 2)

The usual practice in git development is

 (1) people make scripts wrapping plumbing commands (see git(1)) that
     work well for themselves
 (2) they tell the git list about it and publish it
 (3) an idea emerges that this is suitable for inclusion, and it
     gets included

In particular, git's design is not so monolithic --- "extend git" can mean "add a script" or "add a builtin" so it is not so involved as you seem to think. See also contrib/README for a place to stop on the way.

Anyway, if you want something the just works, my suggestion is (4) use the hook scripts from etckeeper. Last time I looked into this they worked better than metastore.

Hope that helps. Jonathan