Re: Bizarre missing changes (git bug?)

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Jul 30, 2008, 03:35 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0807292028290.3334@nehalem.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0807292002520.3334@nehalem.linux-foundation.org>

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> 
> In other words, that change - in a VERY REAL WAY - never actually mattered 
> for the current state of kernel/printk.c. And the history simplification 
> sees that, and avoids showing the whole pointless branch.

Btw, Roman, this is a really really important thing for you to realize.

You need to realize that your "perfect" output really REALLY is totally inferior, if what you are actually interested in is "how did things get to be the way they are".

It's a _feature_. It's not a bug. And it's a really good one.

If side branches didn't matter for the contents of the file, those side branches simply don't matter, and showing them is just a distraction.

Yes, you can ask for the history that doesn't matter for the end result. And yes, I acknowledge freely that it would be good to then have a separate cleanup phase to make that thing more readable. In fact, in the very first reply to you I pointed you to a thread where I said exactly that, long before this thread even started.

But no, the current default isn't broken. No, it's not "lazy" either. No, it was not an "accident". And no, it's not "incorrect".

And until you can see that (along with all the reasons I've outlined why your "fixed" approach is a total piece of sh*t from a performance angle), you're just being stupid.

				Linus