Re: Cloning empty repositories, was Re: What is the idea for bare repositories?

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Nov 15, 2007, 12:44 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0711151330300.16728@wbgn129.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <473C0875.3020805@op5.se>

Hi,

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007, Andreas Ericsson wrote:

> Since empty repositories have HEAD pointing to refs/heads/master by 
> default, you might get away with a simpler implementation.

I recently had somebody asking me "how do I rename master in an empty repository?" It is only logical to think in those terms if you want to start your common development on no common basis at all (i.e. the empty set).

Show 9 quoted lines

> > Am I stupid for using git for this sort of thing?  I believe not.  
> > And yet git developers choose to call me stupid because my work flow 
> > does not lend any sense to a common ancestor commit.
> 
> Not stupid, but most likely unusual. Optimizing git for your needs would 
> imho be a bad idea. It's perfectly fine to use a tool for something else 
> than what it was intended for, but then you'll have to live with the 
> fact that it *will* have a few shortcomings and that you'll have to work 
> around them or fix them yourself.

Yes, I agree. That's what Open Source is: some take their formula one car to go shopping. In some cases, others laugh because that crate of beer tied to the front spoiler sure looks funny. In some of these cases, the driver laughs back, because only this car allows her to go shopping for dinner in a town across the continent.

Seriously again, there are sure things git was not optimised for. If some complaints involving such (from git's POV) suboptimal workflows are retorted by saying so, it is not calling somebody "stupid". Sheesh.

Ciao, Dscho