Re: Regarding the depreciation of ssh+git/git+ssh protocols

From: Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>
Date: Mar 16, 2021, 00:52 UTC
Message-ID: <C9YD4AEUH84L.29FP64NJJ1BPU@taiga>
In-Reply-To: <YE/ZSiuIsMs3ucVM@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Mon Mar 15, 2021 at 6:01 PM EDT, brian m. carlson wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> But you can't find whether a URL is useful for a particular purpose in
> general. For example, if I see an HTTPS URL, that tells me nothing
> about the resources that one might find at that URL.
>
> In addition, it's possible that the data you want exists, but is not
> suitable for you in whatever way (not in a language you understand, in
> an unsuitable format, is illegal or offensive, etc.), or you are not
> authorized to access it. You can't know any of this without making some
> sort of request.
>
> All a URL can tell you is literally where a resource is located. Even
> if we saw a URL that used the hypothetical https+git as the scheme, we
> couldn't determine whether we could access the data, whether the data
> even still exists, or, even if we knew all of those things, whether it
> was using the smart or dumb protocol, without making a request.

What we know is that we can pass it to git to deal with, and then git will determine the next steps. It will negotiate dumb or smart HTTP in-band, deal with errors that arise, and so on. It signals that git is the tool best equipped to deal with the situation, and without that we'd end up guessing.

> So I don't think this is a thing we can do, simply because in general
> URLs aren't suitable for sharing this kind of information.

That's simply not true. They are quite capable at this task, and are fulfilling this duty for a wide varitety of applications today.

I don't really understand the disconnect here. No, URLs are not magic, but they are perfectly sufficient for this use-case.