Re: [PATCH] Make "git reset" a builtin. (incomplete)

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Aug 23, 2007, 09:55 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0708231051210.20400@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.999.0708221313350.16727@xanadu.home>

Hi,

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007, Nicolas Pitre wrote:

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> On Wed, 22 Aug 2007, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > What is wrong with going from shell to C?  C _is_ portable.  Instead 
> > of relying on _yet_ another scripting language, introducing _yet_ 
> > another language that people have to learn to hack git, introducing 
> > _yet_ another place for bugs to hide, why not just admit that shell is 
> > nice for _prototyping_?
> 
> This is a narrow view of the programming world that I don't share.

Well, you have to admit that some things are really, really hard to do in shell. Just from the top of my head: locking, data structures, portability, scalability, process control. There are a lot more, I guess, but for the _core_ of Git I really prefer C.

> C is portable indeed, which is one of its upsides.  But it has many 
> downsides too for many _users_, that as a Git _developer_ you apparently 
> conveniently ignore.

I do not want to shove C down the throat of every Git user. You can use _whatever_ scripting language you like.

Nevertheless, this is _different_ from the choice for _core_ Git. Eventually I'd like to be able to run Git on embedded systems, or my digital watch.

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> > Why do we have to to have the same discussion over and over and over 
> > again?
> 
> Because, as shown by the recurring nature of this discussion, using C for 
> everything is evidently not the optimal solution.

I think the reason is different (as shown by the content of the discussion).

Ciao, Dscho