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Re: Consensus on a new default branch name

From
Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Date
Jun 15, 2020, 22:38 UTC
Message-ID
<CABPp-BE3UAeMKCtwnTf-5ifVhveRPzQfT1T+sHsm_LDOubCHCQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<20200615205722.GG71506@syl.local>
On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 2:01 PM Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> wrote:
Show 11 quoted lines
>
> So, I would like to form some consensus here as to what the new name should be,
> if that is something we're committing to doing. This way, we can make this
> decision now (and allow hosts to make their corresponding changes) while still
> giving us on the list some time to work on the implementation across one or
> more release boundaries.
>
> My interpretation thus far is that 'main' is the planned replacement for
> 'master'. Consensus seems to have formed around this name [5], but if that's
> incorrect--or there are yet-unvoiced opinions that you would like to share--now
> is the time to discuss further.

As I stated in the other thread[1], I'm happy 'default' isn't winning because I think it can lead to ambiguity about the meaning of the phrase "default branch" (particularly when someone changes HEAD on the server to point to anything other than "refs/heads/default"). I don't think "main branch" poses similar issues, as it's not a phrase I've seen used that much (in contrast to "default branch"). Also, "default" being ambiguous bothers me personally more than other terms being ambiguous, as per my story in the other thread. However, it's possible that there is documentation or guides somewhere that have used "main branch" in the past and could become ambiguous with the proposed change, and thus would benefit from updates.

In fact, just to verify, I did a quick search of the git codebase and found 38 uses of "default branch". There were also 9 uses of "main branch", but almost all of those were actually referring to a CVS repository and importing from there which I find innocuous. There was one in git-log.txt that looked problematic to me, though -- it should probably be reworded when we do the master->main renaming.

Hope that helps, Elijah

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABPp-BF8vo_fCbM1ct0MYFhQcVmPwfq7_Q3Fd+SnM0=gVmxkrQ@mail.gmail.com/
Previous: Santiago Torres AriasNext: Jeff King
Message 27 of 31 in “Consensus on a new default branch name”
  1. Taylor BlauJun 15, 2020
  2. Taylor BlauJun 15, 2020
  3. Jeff KingJun 16, 2020
  4. OlegJun 16, 2020
  5. Jeff KingJun 16, 2020
  6. OlegJun 16, 2020
  7. Konstantin RyabitsevJun 16, 2020
  8. OlegJun 16, 2020
  9. Jeff KingJun 16, 2020
  10. Konstantin RyabitsevJun 16, 2020
  11. Santiago Torres AriasJun 16, 2020
  12. Jeff KingJun 16, 2020
  13. Jeff KingJun 16, 2020
  14. Jason PyeronJun 16, 2020
  15. Steve LittJun 16, 2020
  16. OlegJun 16, 2020
  17. Michal SuchánekJun 17, 2020
  18. Michal SuchánekJul 1, 2020
  19. Jeff KingJul 1, 2020
  20. WhinisJul 2, 2020
  21. Philip OakleyJul 2, 2020
  22. WhinisJul 2, 2020
  23. Philip OakleyJul 2, 2020
  24. WhinisJul 2, 2020
  25. Jonathan NiederJul 1, 2020
  26. Santiago Torres AriasJun 15, 2020
  27. Elijah NewrenJun 15, 2020
  28. Jeff KingJun 16, 2020
  29. Junio C HamanoJun 17, 2020
  30. brian m. carlsonJun 15, 2020
  31. James RamsayJun 16, 2020

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

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