Re: GIT vs Other: Need argument

From: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>
Date: Apr 24, 2007, 01:31 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0704232039300.28708@iabervon.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.98.0704231609440.9964@woody.linux-foundation.org>

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Carl Worth wrote:
> >
> > And with the recent talk about phasing cogito out and just merging its 
> > functionality into git itself, why not just use the cogito syntax for 
> > this:
> > 
> > 	git clone <url>#<branch>
> 
> That's a fundamentally weaker operation than the current "git clone", so I 
> really don't think it's a good idea. The syntax also absolutely sucks, 
> it's so horribly non-unixy.
> 
> I'd personally be ok with a
> 
> 	git clone --default=<branch> <url>
> 
> to create something where "master" defaults to some other remote branch, 
> but that just addresses the syntax. And quite frankly, I don't think we 
> *need* to. We shoud just tell people how _easy_ it is to track some other 
> branch now.

I've converted all my coworkers to git recently, and it was helpful to be able to go two weeks without explaining branches, due to the fact that our repositories only have one branch each (at least that people care about). It was also nice that, when one of them did learn about branches, he had the two weeks of experience with the absolute basics. I think that a first time user should be able to get, from the clone command:

[remote "origin"]
	url = ...
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
	remote = origin
	merge = refs/heads/<something>

if the first-time user's first repository for learning has the interesting stuff in a non-default branch. Now, a second-time user can learn about branches, but I think that branches are confusing and scary if you don't already have a bit of experience with the operations that affect a branch.

Obviously, if you want to track two branches in one repository, you need to know how to *have* additional local branches, but you can put off learning that until you recognize the need for it, if there's any easy way to get your initial branch to track the remote branch you're interested in.

Someone can get work done with clone, add, commit -a, pull, and push (or format-patch). Two commands and an additional fundamental concept is a lot of overhead at that stage.

For that matter, I sometimes want a repository where master tracks a branch that isn't default for other people and "mainline" tracks the upstream master, which requires a small amount of config file editing, and can't be made to just happen.

	-Daniel
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