Re: Re* [PATCH] doc: glossary: add entry for revision range

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 18, 2021, 06:55 UTC
Message-ID: <YKNk+5k3hKW/xPBZ@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <60a34a7616cda_14d1bc20818@natae.notmuch>

On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 12:02:46AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> > Why would people need to use "git remote set-head" most of the time? The
> > symlink is set up properly by git-clone, and has been for many years.
> 
> First instructions from GitHub:
> 
>   echo "# test" >> README.md
>   git init
>   git add README.md
>   git commit -m "first commit"
>   git branch -M main
>   git remote add origin git@github.com:felipec/test.git
>   git push -u origin main
> 
> Second instructions from GitHub:
> 
>   git remote add origin git@github.com:felipec/test.git
>   git branch -M main
>   git push -u origin main
> 
> None of these use `git clone`.

So? Here are some other instructions from GitHub[0]:

  Type git clone, and then paste the URL you copied earlier.

    $ git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPOSITORY

[0] https://docs.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositories/cloning-a-repository

Not to mention that every single repository page mentions cloning under the "Code" button (including the command-line "gh repo clone" if you are using their recommended tool).

People clone a lot more than they create new repositories.

> Of 31 repositories I work on and have quickly at hand only 8 have
> origin/HEAD.

And of 141 repositories I have on my workstation, 137 have origin/HEAD (and of the 4 without, one does not even have a remote at all, and one is a git-svn repository).

I don't think that proves anything except that your workflow is different than mine. But I contend that most people get repositories by cloning them.

Show 5 quoted lines

> And even *if* origin/HEAD did work on most repositories (hardly the
> case), most people are not going to train their fingers to type `git cmd
> $x` when the only $x where the command works is "origin"; they would
> rather train their fingers to do $x/master which works on many more
> repositories.

I guess I'm not most people, because I sure have enjoyed typing the shorter thing all these years.

Look, I get that you didn't know or care about the "origin/HEAD" feature until recently. But it's been part of Git for over 15 years, and has been used as the documentation examples for revision ranges in both git-rev-list(1) and gitrevisions(7), as well as the user-manual.

I'm perfectly happy to use placeholder ref names in the glossary documentation, but it's not like the use of "origin" as a name is some obscure secret.

-Peff