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

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Mar 19, 2018, 21:21 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+55aFxSx6xd3yKFQMAoRnjKVj=tgLD=Ui2RRkAe4HRWQ8ohsg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.1803191228240.55@ZVAVAG-6OXH6DA.rhebcr.pbec.zvpebfbsg.pbz>

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 04:34 Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

>
> This is a real problem.

No it isn't.

We already handle those special cases specially, and install them in the bin directory (as opposed to libexec). And it all works fine.

Look into the bin directory some day. You'll find things like

  git-cvsserver
  gitk
  git-receive-pack
  git-shell
  git-upload-archive
  git-upload-pack

there, and the fact that a couple of them happen to be built-ins is an IMPLEMENTATION DETAIL, not a "Oh we should have used just 'git' for them".

The design of having separate programs is the *good* conceptual design. And we damn well should keep it for these things that are used for special purposes.

The fact that two of them have become built-ins as part of the git binary is incidental. It shouldn't be visible in the names, because it really is just an internal implementation thing, not anything fundamental.

> And it is our own darned fault because we let an
> implementation detail bleed into a protocol. We could have designed that a
> lot better.

And by "we" you clearly mean "not you", and by "we could have designed that a lot better" you must mean "and it was very well designed by competent people who didn't use bad operating systems".

> Of course we should fix this, though. There is literally no good reason

Go away.

We shouldn't fix it, it's all fine as-is, and there were tons of f*cking good reasons for why git did what it did. The main one being "it's a collection of scripts", which was what git _was_, for chrissake. And using spaces and running some idiotic and hard-to-verify script de-multiplexer is the WRONG THING for things like "git-shell" and "git-receive-pack" and friends.

Right now you can actually verify exactly what "git-shell" does. Or you could replace - or remove - it entirely if you don't like it. And never have to worry about running "git" with some "shell" subcommand.

And you know that it's not an alias, for example. Because "git-xyz" simply does not look up aliases.

So really. Go away, Johannes. Your concerns are complete and utter BS.

The real problem is that Windows is badly designed, but since it's easy to work around (by using hard-linking on Windows), nobody sane cares.

The solution is simple, and was already suggested: use symlinks (like we used to!) on non-windows systems. End of story.

And for the libexec thing, we might want to deprecate those names, if somebody wants to, but it's not like it actually hurts, and it gives backwards compatibility.

Btw, real Windows people know all about backwards compatibility. Ask around competent people inside MS whether it's an important thing.

So stop this idiotic "bad design" crap. Somebody working on Windows simply can't afford your attitude.

Somebody who didn't design it in the first place can't afford your attitude.

                         Linus