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

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Aug 23, 2007, 10:31 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0708231122450.20400@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <20070823102036.GG7267@thunk.org>

Hi,

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007, Theodore Tso wrote:

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> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 10:10:20AM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > > > Red herring.  The proposal was not to do nothing, but rather give git
> > > > a dedicated scripting language internal to it.
> > > 
> > > That is a really neat idea.
> > 
> > Why?  Why should just _having_ a dedicated scripting language _per se_ be 
> > a neat idea?  We do not _need_ it!  We script git in bash, perl, other 
> > people in Python, Ruby, and even Haskell.  So why should we _take away_ 
> > that freedom from others to script Git in whatever language they like 
> > most?  There is no good reason.
> 
> Users should be able to script in whatever language they want; that's
> clear.  However, what some people were talking about was an internal
> scripting language that would be used for writing git commands, as an
> alternative to an alternative future where everything gets moved to C.

And that is _exactly_ where I fail to see benefits from. You only get the full power of C by using C. You only get the full power of all open source C programmers by using C. And you only get the full flexibility, speed, name-your-own-pet-peeve using C.

Mind you, I use scripts a lot. I even have some projects where I git-added a script to add aliases which are so large as to fit half a terminal.

But we should not _force_ people to have bash or perl when they do not plan to use it themselves.

> (To accomodate those Windows users who for some silly reason refuse to 
> install Cygwin, bash, and perl on their Windows development box.  :-)

I have seen boxes where the administrators locked down everything. And Cygwin _does_ need to write the registry, and there is _no_ easy way to have two independent Cygwin installs on the same machine. This is where MinGW/MSys really shines.

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> So for those people who think an internal scripting language would be a 
> worthwhile way of implementing certain git commands, instead of 
> converting them all to C, my suggestion would be to "show us the code".  
> Actually create the git to LUA bindings, and then show how easily it 
> would be to rewrite a bunch of the existing git commands which are 
> currently implemented in shell in LUA instead.

And force everybody who wants to contribute to _those_ parts of Git to learn LUA? It is not about languages. It is about people. Choosing an obscure language automatically limits your most valuable resource: people.

We saw that already with filter-branch (which saw some duplicate efforts, because one developer was not comfortable with shell; we had two different programs with different suboptimal behaviours).

> But if people are just gushing over the glories of elisp and saying 
> things like *someone* should create a scripting language for git, it's 
> just going to be a waste of everyone's time.

Amen, Dscho