Re: git versus CVS (versus bk)

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: Oct 31, 2005, 21:53 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0510311346110.27915@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <20051031213616.GO11488@ca-server1.us.oracle.com>

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, Joel Becker wrote:

> 
> 	I could care less about preserving my public image.  I'm an
> idiot, I screw up all the time.  I only care that the tip of my tree is
> respectable.

I definitely care about more than just the tip.

A broken history is a _problem_. Automatic tools like "git bisect" can't help you if you have lots of commits in between that are fundamentally broken. And even ignoring that, it just makes it harder for everybody to understand what the code does when "git-whatchanged" shows total crap that was undone.

History is important. It's important enough that you should keep it meaningful. And "meaningful" does not mean "show all your mistakes".

Some people will say that the mistakes are as important as the fixes. I call bull on that. Mistakes are mistakes. Dead ends aren't useful, even as historical examples.

At the same time, I'm not a rabid "history must be perfect" freak. Mistakes happen. Just fix then and move on.

When you have guests over, I sure hope that you don't walk around in your bathrobe, with pieces of your anatomy sticking out that shouldn't stick out. Sure, it may be the "real you", but there's a difference between being honest, and just being disgusting.

The same is true of SCM history. There's "honesty", and there's "digusting mess". At least when it comes to the kernel, I want the "honest" kind of history, not the "disgusting" kind.

			Linus