From: Linus Torvalds Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:07:27 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] fetch-pack should not ask for a ref which is already there Message-ID: In-Reply-To: On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > > Wouldn't it make much more sense to add a flag which repairs an incomplete > fetch? No. We've seen crap. We've _seen_ people use the old git-ssh-pull etc that would result in incomplete repositories, and having people use the "--recover" flag. THAT KIND OF CRAP IS UNACCEPTABLE! I had to walk Andrew through a broken repository because he had used those unreliable fetch methods. I was ashamed of git at that point. If a ^C results in a repository that needs to be fixed up, the "source control management" is BROKEN. It's not source control, it's a buggy mess. I refuse to use such tools. End of story. We do this right, or we don't do it at all. And doing it right means that you only write refs after you've downloaded everything, and you only _ever_ depend on refs. You don't _ever_ say "if I have this object, I think I have everything". The thing is, _reliability_ is #1. It's not performance. Performance is important, but performance doesn't matter AT ALL if it comes at the expense of reliability. Linus