Re: Feedback outside of the user survey

Richard Hartmann wrote:

Hm, I don't see a fundamental technical problem which would prevent one from implementing the ability to checkout only a subdirectory into the working directory (i.e. to add options to Git to make it reflect the working directory as being a subdirectory of what is in Git's database). At this level I don't see anything inherently different from SVN--except maybe for directory renames: if someone else is renaming the directory you've checked out, what should happend with your checkout? Git's filebased rename tracking would just lead to everything vanishing from your checkout. I don't know what happens in SVN, maybe it keeps track of the directory rename and still sends you the changes of the directory you've checked out even if it has now a different name on the server?

Anyway, an unavoidable difference is that you have to always clone the whole Git *database*. With SVN the database stays on the server, with Git it is being cloned. Just as I expect SVN to need the whole database to be able to work (tracking renames across directories etc.), Git needs the whole database too. So implementing subdirectory workingdir checkouts wouldn't help reduce the bandwidth and storage necessary for getting at the database.

I guess what you are referring to is

 $ git clone git://foo.com/bar.git
 $ cd bar
 $ rm -rf *
 $ git checkout somesubdir

Now you've got only somesubdir/ below bar/. This solves the rename problem insofar, as somesubdir will just be renamed if someone else commits a "git mv somesubdir somethingelse" and you pull that change. But there's also another caveat: "git status" will of course report the other files as deleted, which is an accident waiting to happen when you next run "git commit -a".

(In any case, this is just thinking louder than I deserve, as there's no code at all in Git written by me.)

Christian.