Re: [PATCH 0/7] submodule groups

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
>
>> The reason why I suspect that this may not work well with submodule
>> labels is because submodule labels (or any attribute we give via
>> .gitmodules to a submodule) are keyed by a submodule name, which is
>> the primary unchanging key (so that people can "mv" a submodule in
>> the context of the toplevel superproject without losing track of
>> submodule identity), not by paths to submodules, while the "group"
>> thing I want is merely a short-hand for pathspec elements and wants
>> to be keyed by paths.
>>
>> But there may be somebody more clever than I who can come up with a
>> way to unify these two similar concepts without confusing end users.
>
> Thinking about this even more, if there is no requirement that
> labels must be tied to submodule names, we just can scrap the idea
> of "submodule labels" to group things and instead just use "path
> labels", i.e. write the full path to the submodule and assign it a
> label in .gitattributes and use it in place of where we used *label
> in the patch series.  After all, an easy way to choose some among
> many submodules logically is a subset of an easy way to choose some
> among many paths.
>
> The only reason why we added the submodule label to .gitmodules is
> because we viewed it as submodule-specific thing and the "keyed by
> name, not path" came as a consequence, not because any real "we must
> key it by name because..." reason, I would think.
>
> I know this is a huge departure from the design presented both at
> the conceptual level and also at the implementation level, and that
> is one of the reasons why I do not particularly want to like it, but
> on the other hand, I am not bold enough to say that I will have a
> good answer when later somebody asks "Why can we group only
> submodules with labels, but not random group of paths (e.g. 'these
> directories are about documentation')?"  And then, if we add path
> labels to allow expressing groups of paths later, the follow-up
> question would be "When should I use submodule labels and when
> should I use path labels?  I can use path labels to group submodules
> and say 'git submodule update -- :(group=docs)' can't I?".
>
> And that makes me pause and step back from the "submodule labels"
> idea.
>