Re: [PATCH 2/2] Add Author and Documentation sections to git-for-each-ref.txt

Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:

Thanks for bringing this up.

In the very early days (like back when the project was only 12 months old) it made sense to record that this and that command were primarily done by that person. But I don't think it is a good idea anymore.

For example, format-patch was my invention and all the code was mine back when it was a script. Later it was reimplemented in C by Dscho based on my earlier work. But a large part of the actual implementation was done by using the generic revision traversal machinery, whose primary authors back then were Linus and me. The silly original UI design everybody hates ("format-patch <upstream>" is not similar to 'git log <upstream>..'") is "owned" by me, the user facing main() implementation is "owned" by Dscho, and the backend machinery is "owned" by Linus and me.

Who should we list, and more importantly, does it make sense to keep the list up to date as the system evolves?

As the project and the community grew, and also as the internal machinery infrastructure got more modularized, I think ownership at the individual command level has become almost meaningless concept.

Same reasoning applies to the "Documented by". I think it's time for these two sections to go from most (if not all) pages.