Re: Rename handling

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Mar 19, 2007, 18:48 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0703191145530.6730@woody.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.83.0703191427140.18328@xanadu.home>

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Nicolas Pitre wrote:

> 
> And some will argue that explicit renames are susceptible to user error 
> misidentifying the rename too, certainly in the 1% figure of all renames 
> if not more.

It's much worse than that. I will *guarantee* that renames are missed when they come in as traditional patches, for example. That's a 100% error rate right there, not some "1%" one.

And even if people never make mistakes, and people *only* use the native SCM "rename" functions, I guarantee that the downsides of thinking that files have identities is still much much bigger than the upsides. We've already shown that the git "blame" functionality is strictly more powerful than anything based on renames.

So learn to love the bomb. Rename tracking is *wrong*.

		Linus