Re: [RESEND PATCHv2] contrib: remove git-convert-objects

From: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>
Date: Jan 19, 2017, 21:55 UTC
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kam9ACf+xa3nvHT2KYqPR6qPM4ohKt7gtEv21-rmBdEuw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqo9z2zs2o.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:
>
>> git-convert-objects, originally named git-convert-cache was used in
>> early 2005 to convert to a new repository format, e.g. adding an author
>> date.
>
> I think this description is not wrong per-se but misses the much
> more important point.  In the very early days of Git, the objects
> were named after SHA-1 of deflated loose object representation,
> which meant that tweak in zlib or change of compression level would
> give the same object different names X-<.  This program was to
> convert an ancient history with these objects and rewrite them to
> match the new object naming scheme where the name comes from a hash
> of the inflated representation.

ok, in case I reroll again, I'll fixup the message.

Show 7 quoted lines

>
>> By now the need for conversion of the very early repositories is less
>> relevant, we no longer need to keep it in contrib; remove it.
>
> I am not sure if removal of it matters, and I suspect that we saw no
> reaction from anybody because nobody thought it deserves the
> brain-cycle to decide whether to remove it.  I dunno.

I do think removing this would improve contrib/, not just because
it would better align with contribs mission statement in its README, but
also for other reasons. Why would a user look into contrib/ at all?
* to find interesting contemporary bits and pieces
* if they want to find old stuff for educational purposes, they ought to
  be looking into contrib/examples instead.

So maybe instead of this patch, just move it to the examples section? (That way we archive the same goal: a cleaner, fresher contrib/ that doesn't look as stale)

Thanks, Stefan