Re: Lets avoid the SHA-1 term (was [doc] User Manual Suggestion)

From: Michael Witten <mfwitten@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 27, 2009, 13:02 UTC
Message-ID: <b4087cc50904270602q17fba432ka219180d358fae47@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20090427002838.GF12338@atjola.homenet>

2009/4/26 Björn Steinbrink <B.Steinbrink@gmx.de>:

Show 6 quoted lines

>
>> Do you agree that either 'id' or 'hash' would work fine?
>
> "object id" would work for me, but I'm fine with the existing "object
> name" as well. I don't like "object hash" (or "object hash id"), because
> it IMHO doesn't express that well that it's used to identify an object.

However, the SHA-1 hash is not actually essential to git. In the git world, there is only content and every object is identified by its content. Now, to identify an object, it would be pretty cumbersome to have to write out the contents, so we abbreviate the contents with a hash.

So, the hash or object name or object id or whatever you want to call it isn't even an essential part to git. It is a convenience.

In that sense, I think that '[cryptographic] hash' is the right term, because the others ("object name" and "object id") seem special. A hash is not special. In fact, the documentation should read "For convenience, the git tools refer to objects using the hash value of their contents". You see? It's not essential.