Re: tracking renames

From: Steven Grimm <koreth@midwinter.com>
Date: Mar 7, 2008, 08:19 UTC
Message-ID: <526E4B08-9F52-461E-B542-4549987C4DFE@midwinter.com>
In-Reply-To: <200803051715.58375.jnareb@gmail.com>

On Mar 5, 2008, at 8:15 AM, Jakub Narebski wrote:

> No, you are not the only one. Use Bazaar-NG (bzr) or Mercurial (hg)
> if you think you truly need rename _tracking_ as opposed to rename
> _detection_.

Having watched (and participated in) this discussion several times as it's come up on the list, the one thing I don't understand is why people -- not you, but others -- think this has to be an "as opposed to" issue. I have yet to see anyone propose that git should lose its rename detection, but the counterarguments and explanations about how inferior rename tracking is often seem to presuppose that that's what's being asked for.

I think the setup the pro-rename-tracking crowd mostly wants is, "git always treats explicitly specified renames as renames and uses its current detection regime if there is no explicit specification." As you say later on in the parent message, a wish-list item that hasn't become reality yet.

I am not saying I think it's too important, BTW; I'm just trying to clarify the other point of view. Personally, my only major wish item for git's rename support is better handling of directory renames, but I don't really care how git knows that the directory in question has been renamed. The file rename support has worked very well for me in practice.

-Steve