git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: [PATCH RFC v2 2/2] Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directory

From
SZEDER Gábor <szeder.dev@gmail.com>
Date
Jun 27, 2026, 06:40 UTC
Message-ID
<aj9wcFEb6oCRnfn2@szeder.dev>
In-Reply-To
<20260622-pks-libgit-in-subdir-v2-2-cb946c51ee7b@pks.im>
On Mon, Jun 22, 2026 at 12:38:22PM +0200, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
Show 34 quoted lines
> The Git project is not exactly the easiest project to get started in:
> it's written in C and POSIX shell, with bits of Perl, Rust and other
> languages sprinkled into it. On top of that, the project has grown
> somewhat organically over time, making the codebase hard to navigate.
> 
> These are problems that we're aware of, and there have been and still
> are efforts to clean up some of the technical debt that is natural to
> exist an a project that is more than 20 years old. Furthermore, we
> provide resources to newcomers that help them out like our coding
> guidelines, code of conduct or "MyFirstContribution.adoc".
> 
> But there is a rather practical problem: finding your way around in our
> project's tree is not easy. Doing a directory listing in the top-level
> directory will present you with more than 550 files, which makes it
> extremely hard for a newcomer to figure out what files they are even
> supposed to look at. This makes the onboarding experience somewhat
> harder than it really needs to be. This isn't only a problem for
> newcomers though, as I myself struggle to find the files I am looking
> for because of the sheer number of files.
> 
> Besides the problem of discoverability it also creates a problem of
> structure. It is not obvious at all which files are part of "libgit.a"
> and which files are only linked into our final executables. So while we
> have this split in our build systems, that split is not evident at all
> in our tree.
> 
> Introduce a new "lib/" directory and move all of our sources for
> "libgit.a" into it to fix these issues. It makes the split we have
> evident and reduces the number of files in our top-level tree from 550
> files to ~80 files.
> 
> This is still a lot of files, but it's significantly easier to navigate
> already. Furthermore, we can further iterate after this step and think
> about introducing a better structure for remaining files, as well.

Please also discuss the drawbacks of this proposal, and try to argue convincingly that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

I, for one, see myself being rather annoyed by regular 'git log lib/foo.c' stopping at the rename barrier, and by the limitations of '--follow'.

In my opinion this patch just trades one annoyance to an other, and, therefore, it's not worth the churn.

Previous: Patrick SteinhardtNext: Patrick Steinhardt
Message 24 of 32 in “Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directory”
  1. 0/2 Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directoryPatrick Steinhardt, Apr 16, 2026
  2. 1/2 t/helper: prepare "test-example-tap.c" for introduction of "lib/"Patrick Steinhardt, Apr 16, 2026
  3. 2/2 Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directoryPatrick Steinhardt, Apr 16, 2026
  4. Elijah NewrenApr 17, 2026
  5. brian m. carlsonApr 17, 2026
  6. Junio C HamanoApr 17, 2026
  7. brian m. carlsonApr 17, 2026
  8. Patrick SteinhardtApr 20, 2026
  9. Phillip WoodApr 19, 2026
  10. Patrick SteinhardtApr 20, 2026
  11. Derrick StoleeApr 20, 2026
  12. Patrick SteinhardtApr 21, 2026
  13. Derrick StoleeApr 21, 2026
  14. Patrick SteinhardtApr 22, 2026
  15. 0/2 Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directoryPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 22, 2026
  16. 1/2 t/helper: prepare "test-example-tap.c" for introduction of "lib/"Patrick Steinhardt, Jun 22, 2026
  17. 2/2 Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directoryPatrick Steinhardt, Jun 22, 2026
  18. Junio C HamanoJun 22, 2026
  19. Patrick SteinhardtJun 24, 2026
  20. Oswald BuddenhagenJun 24, 2026
  21. Johannes SchindelinJun 26, 2026
  22. Junio C HamanoJun 26, 2026
  23. Patrick SteinhardtJul 1, 2026
  24. SZEDER GáborJun 27, 2026
  25. Patrick SteinhardtJul 1, 2026
  26. Phillip WoodJul 1, 2026
  27. Junio C HamanoJul 1, 2026
  28. Patrick SteinhardtJul 2, 2026
  29. Kaartic SivaraamJul 6, 2026
  30. 0/2 Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directoryPatrick Steinhardt, Jul 13, 2026
  31. 1/2 t/helper: prepare "test-example-tap.c" for introduction of "lib/"Patrick Steinhardt, Jul 13, 2026
  32. 2/2 Move libgit.a sources into separate "lib/" directoryPatrick Steinhardt, Jul 13, 2026

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.