Re: Ort-merge: What does "ort" mean?

From: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 24, 2021, 19:21 UTC
Message-ID: <CABPp-BEKJrRkhb2W0SWpjCawG4ZVs8oVuhQ5SJ+7zT331ybhSA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <YDYteUnxQZuPIAML@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 5:13 AM brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

>
> On 2021-02-24 at 10:05:12, Kerry, Richard wrote:
> >
> > It's now been quite a few weeks, probably months, since the
> > "ort-merge" work has been going one.  However, I don't think I've ever
> > seen an explanation of what "ort" means.  I know it means "place" in
> > German, but that seems an unlikely usage because git project generally
> > works in English.  I don't know of it as a word in English.  So maybe
> > it's an acronym - ORT.  But what does that mean?
> >
> > So, can someone please say what "ort" means?
>
> I believe it's a joke.  One can use the -s option to control the
> strategy, so you could write "git merge -sort" to use the new
> implementation.

It actually has meaning beyond being a joke, though:

$ head -n 15 merge-ort.c
/*
 * "Ostensibly Recursive's Twin" merge strategy, or "ort" for short.  Meant
 * as a drop-in replacement for the "recursive" merge strategy, allowing one
 * to replace
 *
 *   git merge [-s recursive]
 *
 * with
 *
 *   git merge -s ort
 *
 * Note: git's parser allows the space between '-s' and its argument to be
 * missing.  (Should I have backronymed "ham", "alsa", "kip", "nap, "alvo",
 * "cale", "peedy", or "ins" instead of "ort"?)
 */

However, I learned my lesson -- Eric is way better at coming up with names than me[1] so if I need more names in the future, I'll ping him. :-)

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAPig+cQ2e4NF6GhRvCTgt1KpPG5Lw_ybPM5FeWtmc69rxvXFuQ@mail.gmail.com/