Re: [RFC/PATCH 0/7] Rework git core for native submodules

From: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 8, 2013, 08:07 UTC
Message-ID: <CALkWK0m5iN8h0J1EkbMTJoXy6QHHzyTjRfPnhL3XMgi=NAi2eg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <5162763D.5030708@web.de>

Jens Lehmann wrote:

> Hmm, at least the unstaged .gitmodules file has to be parsed from
> the file system.

You seem to be touting it as a distinct advantage. In my opinion, .gitmodules is a wart that needs to be done away with: it should _not_ be on the filesystem, just like a commit object isn't on the filesystem. Getting links to unstage is two hours of work, tops. And I'm the one writing the whole thing, so I don't see what everyone else is complaining about.

> And Heiko's current work on parsing .gitmodules
> directly from the object store will help here too, right?

Ofcourse, you _can_ parse a blob into a struct. It's just extremely gross to treat a blob located in a certain tree path differently from other blobs. It's a perverse violation of git's fundamental design, and I'm strongly against such a change.

What I still fail to understand is why you keep mentioning work-in-progress. You've had five years in which you haven't been able to do things that I did in two days. Yes, you _can_ keep .gitmodules and hack around everything, but why do you _want_ to do that? Preserving backward compatibility is not *that* important, in my opinion.