Re: [PATCH 2/3] Different views on a repository

> On Thursday 25 February 2010 10:01:43 Michael J Gruber wrote:
>> Andreas Gruenbacher venit, vidit, dixit 24.02.2010 16:57:
>>> Add --view options in upload-pack and receive-pack so that a repository
>>> on the server side can be made to look like several independent
>>> repositories on the client side.
>>>
>>> This is implemented by transforming ref names: for example, with
>>> --view=one/, refs/heads/one/master on the server will look like
>>> refs/heads/master to the client, refs/tags/one/v1 will look like
>>> refs/tags/v1, etc.
>>>
>>> This allows to transparently share repositories on the server which
>>> have a lot of objects in common without complicating things for the
>>> client, and without breaking garbage collection.
>>
>> Just from this description, I can't see why the same can't be done with
>> appropriate refspecs. (A helper for doing that would be more welcome, of
>> course.)
> 
> You mean on the client side? The problem then is that a simple "git clone" 
> would not do the right thing anymore; you would still expose server-side 
> implementation details to clients. Clients shouldn't have to bother with this 
> added complexity. (They might not even have access to some of the views.) When 
> you do the mapping server-side, you can split or merge repositories as needed 
> without the clients even noticing.