Re: Definition of "the Git repository"

From: Chris Torek <chris.torek@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 28, 2021, 15:34 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPx1Gvcu9XzZF_LbV8YFsiGhL1DPwki-BNp5-5ZeB9BeiRj1AQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <070e36dc-f126-661a-3af7-b44d47ef7861@iee.email>

On Mon, Jun 28, 2021 at 8:24 AM Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.email> wrote:

> My main point was that there is this creative tension between the
> different contexts and that beginners should be aware that it's not all
> cut and dried in the same way that language definitions tend to be.

Users should be aware that users are humans, and humans are not consistent. Nothing is as cut-and-dried as it might appear, ever. Or, as Kant put it: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crooked_Timber

(If you want to put fine distinctions on things, some parts of a repository are repository-wide, and some parts are work-tree-specific. The git worktree command, when it adds a new work-tree, adds a new index and HEAD and *_HEAD and other work-tree-specific refs, for instance. That said, I still teach that .git mainly contains the repository proper, with the rest being your working tree -- or, once we introduce git worktree, your *main* working tree.)

Chris