Re: push.default: current vs upstream

From: Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 6, 2012, 18:03 UTC
Message-ID: <CAHkcotgiNyaSRr-AH2j7GXjwXVSKToegZbycLWitv1tEfW6uSg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CANgJU+VM4Dz3-EGa6z4hB8hB7ZvaahrG8tb5VCCzWQ=7zohBFA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 5:36 PM, demerphq <demerphq@gmail.com> wrote:

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> On 6 April 2012 13:38, Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seriously, why do you care about beginners who use a centralized workflow
>> and not beginners who have to use with existing projects that use more or
>> less distributed workflow,
>
> Because the former are unlikely to be self-selected users of git and
> instead are likely to be forced to use git because their $work has
> dictated it to be so.

Any decision is made by people. On its own, $work does not dictate what VCS or what workflow should be used. There are many ways for those who are in charge to screw up things. And a centralized workflow is not very scalable and many bad practices associated with it. While it is not easy to to convert a CVS/SVN repository to git that alone does not bring most of git advantages, because those advantages come from the workflow.

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> The self-selected users of git IMO would tend to
> both have the motivation and the basic skills to learn whatever they
> need and are unlikely to blame their mistakes on git. The ones forced
> to use git are *very* likely to say "git is broken", or "git doesn't
> work" and then start arguing that "cvs never had that problem". Do you
> really want a bunch of users of your software thinking CVS was
> superior?

Git is a distributed version control system. There is another VCS whose whole designed was dictated by being a better CVS. It's called SVN and if someone is happy with it, why do not use it?

I think git default settings should respect the main goal of git design: a good support of a distributed workflow. Certainly git can be used in many other ways: some people use it with a centralized workflow, some use it to back up their configuration files, etc.. But those usage should not dictate the default settings for git.

Dmitry