Re: [PATCH 3/3] Makefile: optionally symlink libexec/git-core binaries to bin/git

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Mar 14, 2018, 17:21 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+55aFwU5fwWx2+DdBp=XCpG2Orx+rA8KxPVtGHxpgHAZs=h2Q@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <87y3ivdkvp.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 3:14 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> On Wed, Mar 14 2018, Johannes Sixt jotted:
>>
>> It is important to leave the default at hard-linking the binaries,
>> because on Windows symbolic links are second class citizens (they
>> require special privileges and there is a distinction between link
>> targets being files or directories). Hard links work well.
>
> Yeah makes sense. I just want to add this as an option, and think if
> it's proven to be un-buggy we could probably turn it on by default on
> the *nix's if people prefer that, but yeah, we'll definitely need the
> uname detection.

I definitely would prefer to make symlinks the default on unix.

It's what we used to do (long long ago), and as you pointed out, it's a lot clearer what's going on too when you don't have to look at inode numbers and link counts.

Forcing hardlinking everywhere by default just because Windows filesystems suck donkey ass through a straw is not the right thing either.

                Linus