Re: Reference for quote "creating branch is not the issue, merging is", in context of Subversion/Git

From: Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 26, 2017, 15:19 UTC
Message-ID: <32232f89-a6f8-be30-278a-bdfedae0716a@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <c25bc18c-d599-93fd-0bad-23e1240e081e@huettermann.net>

Hello Michael,

On 26/02/2017 12:40, Michael Hüttermann wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Linus Torvalds made a statement regarding merging/branching and stated
> (as far as I know) that "creating branch is not the issue, merge is", in
> context of Subversion/Git.
> I do not find the origin source for that. Can you please help and point
> me to a statement or article where Linus elaborated on this?

Could it be that you think of "Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on Git"[1] (held on May 3, 2007)?

To give you some clue, here`s an excerpt from Linus' talk/presentation (taken from the transcript[2] containing the whole thing):

  "... Subversion for example, talks very loudly about how they do CVS
  right by making branching really cheap. It's probably on their main
  webpage where they probably say branching in subversion is O(1)
  operation, you can do as many cheap branches as you want. Nevermind
  that O(1) is actually with pretty large O I think, but even if it
  takes a millionth of a second to do branching, who cares? It's the
  wrong thing you are measuring. Nobody is interested in branching,
  branches are completely useless unless you merge them, and CVS cannot
  merge anything at all. You can merge things once, but because CVS
  then forgets what you did, you can never ever merge anything again
  without getting horrible horrible conflicts. Merging in subversion is
  a complete disaster. The subversion people kind of acknowledge this
  and they have a plan, and their plan sucks too. It is incredible how
  stupid these people are. They've been looking at the wrong problem
  all the time. Branching is not the issue, merging is..."

This specific branch/merge performance talk starts at 50:20[3], where the part quoted above comes at 51:34[4].

Please note that there`s more context before and after this excerpt that puts it all into the meant perspective, so you may really want to watch/listen/read the whole thing anyway.

Regards, Buga

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 [2] https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/LinusTalk200705Transcript [3] https://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8?t=3020 [4] https://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8?t=3094