Re: Tilde spec - befuzzled
- From
Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
- Date
- Feb 29, 2012, 09:30 UTC
- Message-ID
- <4F4DF02F.5050609@op5.se>
- In-Reply-To
- <CAH5451m=6XhRj1osN_Dw7zKvAW-jtru+EbCkRvo8aNRMbJS6bA@mail.gmail.com>
On 02/29/2012 02:18 AM, Andrew Ardill wrote:
Show 32 quoted lines
> On 29 February 2012 06:20, Junio C Hamano<gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Thomas Rast<trast@inf.ethz.ch> writes:
>>
>>>>> '<rev>{tilde}<n>', e.g. 'master{tilde}3'::
>>>>> A suffix '{tilde}<n>' to a revision parameter means the commit
>>>>> object that is the<n>th generation grand-parent of the named
>>>>> commit object, following only the first parents.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hang on, *grand*-parents?
>>>>> ...
>>>
>>> Perhaps we should reword it as "n-th first-parent ancestor"? Barring
>>> confusion about the position of the dashes, that leaves little room for
>>> error.
>>
>> I think we could either go "easier to read but not precise"
>>
>> ... that is the<n>th generation (grand-)parent of ...
>>
>> or "may sound scary but correct"
>>
>> the ancestor reached by walking the first-parent chain<n> times
>>
>> I am not sure which bucket "n-th first-parent ancestor" falls into.
>
> The terms might be too technical, however my understanding was that
> HEAD^n takes<n> steps along a breadth-first traversal of the commit
> tree rooted at HEAD, while HEAD~n uses a depth-first traversal.
>
> A better form for the description might come from that formulation of
> the process, rather than the 'generational' formulation.
> I doubt it. Most non-programmers have no notion of the difference between breadth-first and depth-first. You have to work with trees or graphs in some form before breadth and depth become intuitive to read in tech docs.
-- Andreas Ericsson andreas.ericsson@op5.se OP5 AB www.op5.se Tel: +46 8-230225 Fax: +46 8-230231 Considering the successes of the wars on alcohol, poverty, drugs and terror, I think we should give some serious thought to declaring war on peace.