Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Remove git-filter-branch from git.git; host it elsewhere

From: Eric Wong <e@80x24.org>
Date: Aug 27, 2019, 07:03 UTC
Message-ID: <20190827070324.7l2cpc3dlnithbm6@whir>
In-Reply-To: <20190826235226.15386-1-newren@gmail.com>

Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> wrote:

> Some highlevel notes on the patches:
> 
>   * Patches 1&2: are good cleanups & performance wins regardless of
>     whether the rest of the series is taken

Agreed. Though weren't we moving away from pipes in tests because failures could go unnoticed? (I haven't been paying too much attention, though)

>   * Patch 5: actually deletes git-filter-branch, its tests, and
>     documentation.

Given how long we've had git-filter-branch, I suggest we keep it around but add a warning at runtime notifying users of it's impending removal. Such warning should remain for >=10 years or whatever an distro support cycle is, nowadays.

And there should probably be a way to disable the warning via git-config if it's too annoying.

AFAIK, filter-branch is not causing support headaches for any git developers today. With so many commands in git, it's unlikely newbies will ever get around to discover it :) So I think think we should be in any rush to remove it.

But I agree that filter-branch isn't useful and certainly shouldn't be encouraged/promoted.

Yet there's probably still users which ARE happy with it, that will never hit the edge cases and problems it poses; and will never read release notes. And said users are probably getting git from a slow-moving distro, so it'd be a disservice to them if they lost a tool they depend on without any warning.