Re: [PATCH] notes: accept any ref for merge

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Dec 4, 2014, 10:26 UTC
Message-ID: <20141204102657.GA27739@peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <6b21dd7a53200ab413c67bb4667e8bc@74d39fa044aa309eaea14b9f57fe79c>

On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 10:04:57AM -0800, Kyle J. McKay wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> > By "stealth enabler" I mean the removal of refs/notes/ restriction
> > that was originally done as a safety measure to avoid mistakes of
> > storing notes outside.  The refs/remote-notes/ future direction
> > declares that it is no longer a mistake to store notes outside
> > refs/notes/, but that does not necessarily have to mean that
> > anywhere under refs/ is fine.  It may make more sense to be explicit
> > with the code touched here to allow traditional refs/notes/ and the
> > new hierarchy only.  That way, we will still keep the "avoid
> > mistakes" safety and enable the new layout at the same time.
> 
> This is the part where I want to lobby for inclusion of this change.   
> I do not believe it is consistent with existing Git practice to  
> enforce restrictions like this (you can only display/edit/etc. notes  
> under refs/notes/*).

Yeah, this is the compelling part to me. There is literally no way to utilize the notes codes for any ref outside of refs/notes currently. We don't know if refs/remote-notes is the future, or refs/remotes/origin/notes, or something else. But we can't even experiment with it in a meaningful way because the plumbing layer is so restrictive.

The notes feature has stagnated. Not many people use it because it requires so much magic to set up and share notes. I think it makes sense to remove a safety feature that is making it harder to experiment with. If the worst case is that people start actually _using_ notes and we get proliferation of places that people are sticking them in the refs hierarchy, that is vastly preferable IMHO to the current state, in which few people use them and there is little support for sharing them at all.

The original patch discussion sort of fizzled, and your response here largely slipped through the cracks. I am not sure everyone even remembers the exact patch under discussion. Maybe a better way to re-kickstart the discussion is to repost the patch along with a synopsis of the previous discussion and your arguments about moving it forward.

-Peff