Re: [PATCH 00/11] Start retiring .git/remotes/ and .git/branches/ for good

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 12, 2017, 09:11 UTC
Message-ID: <20170512091104.5yl57m4x6z5oxq3r@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <cover.1494509599.git.johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>

On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 03:47:33PM +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Git uses the config for remote/upstream information in favor of the
> previously-used .git/remotes/ and .git/branches/ for a decade now.
> 
> Nothing in Git writes to these files any longer, and the most prominent
> user of .git/branches/ (Cogito) is long abandoned.
> 
> It is time to start not only deprecating this feature, but *really*
> deprecating it. Like, really, *really*. For reals.

I like the goal, and the patches themselves (both the deprecations and the actual removal) all look good to me.

If we want to start slow (and if Junio is right that there may be some people who are actually using this feature, we probably should), step 0 may be making people aware that it's on the horizon, even before we start issuing annoying warnings to them. This thread does that to some degree, but we could also put it in the release notes for a version. That's not guaranteed to get people's attention, but it gives more opportunity for them to speak up before installing a version of Git that produces warnings whenever they fetch.

-Peff