Re: [PATCH] doc: add a explanation of Git's data model
- From
- Kristoffer Haugsbakk <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com>
- Date
- Oct 8, 2025, 09:59 UTC
- Message-ID
- <b0220dca-d324-49c8-af80-7b19f3b70691@app.fastmail.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <51e0a55c-1f1d-4cae-9459-8c2b9220e52d@app.fastmail.com>
On Mon, Oct 6, 2025, at 21:36, Julia Evans wrote:
Show 26 quoted lines
>[snip]
>>> +blobs::
>>> + A blob is how Git represents a file. A blob object contains the
>>> + file's contents.
>>> ++
>>> +Storing a new blob for every new version of a file can get big, so
>>> +`git gc` periodically compresses objects for efficiency in
>>> `.git/objects/pack`.
>>
>> This gets into mentioning implementation files(?) like you mentioned in
>> the commit message.
>
> That's true! The reason I think this is important to mention is that I find
> that people often "reject" information that they find implausible, even
> if it comes from a credible source. ("that can't be true! I must be
> not understanding correctly. Oh well, I'll just ignore that!")
>
> I sometimes hear from users that "commits can't be snapshots", because
> it would take up too much disk space to store every version of
> every commit. So I find that sometimes explaining a little bit about the
> implementation can make the information more memorable.
>
> Certainly I'm not able to remember details that don't make sense
> with my mental model of how computers work and I don't expect other
> people to either, so I think it's important to give an explanation that
> handles the biggest "objections".That’s very intresting. Yes, maybe people need to be told/taught to a level which might be considered “just implementation details” or else both neither their curiosity won’t be satisfied *nor* will their own sense of error-correction for the seemingly implausible.
Show 9 quoted lines
>[snip] >> I appreciate that this is the first version and you might have plans >> after this one. But I wonder if this doc could use a fair number of >> `gitlink` to branch out to all the other parts. Like git-reflog(1), >> gitglossary(7). > > That's reasonable. Do you often use the "See also" section of > man pages? I've never looked at them so I'm always curious about > how people are actually using them in practice.
I don’t really use See Also when looking things up. But I notice all the mentions of other docs in running text.
>[snip]