Re: git-bug: Distributed bug tracker embedded in git

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 18, 2018, 22:08 UTC
Message-ID: <20180818220821.GC144170@aiede.svl.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <8736vbqr2p.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> The reason I can drop a "git-whatever" in my $PATH and invoke it as "git
> whatever" is just a historical accident of how git was implemented.

No. This is a very deliberate design decision, to allow people to prototype new Git commands (and to create the kind of ecosystem that allows commands to be implemented outside Git.

[...]

> So we don't get to say "you never asked us about git-annex, we're using
> that name now" without considering how widely used it is. It's us who
> decided to expose the API of seamlessly integrating 3rd party tools.

I think we're talking past each other. I haven't proposed any blanket policy. I'm saying that "git bug" is a bad name for this tool:

 - it's hard to find with search engines
 - it conflicts with some likely good future changes to Git
 - it assumes that no one else will have some other refinement of the
   Git bugtracker concept, that it is the only "git bug" tool

It's a namespace grab. There's nothing stopping someone from naming a command "bug", either, but that doesn't make it a good idea. (I'm not saying that was the intent --- that's just the effect.)

Meanwhile it looks like a neat tool, and I'm very supportive of the idea. But you certainly still have not convinced me that the name is a good idea, or that I shouldn't be bringing this up.

I'm not sure *what* you're trying to convince me of, actually.

Jonathan