From: Andreas Ericsson Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:30:23 GMT Subject: Re: Tilde spec - befuzzled Message-ID: <4F4DF02F.5050609@op5.se> In-Reply-To: On 02/29/2012 02:18 AM, Andrew Ardill wrote: > On 29 February 2012 06:20, Junio C Hamano wrote: >> Thomas Rast writes: >> >>>>> '{tilde}', e.g. 'master{tilde}3':: >>>>> A suffix '{tilde}' to a revision parameter means the commit >>>>> object that is theth 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 theth generation (grand-)parent of ... >> >> or "may sound scary but correct" >> >> the ancestor reached by walking the first-parent chain 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 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.