From: Han-Wen Nienhuys Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:26:24 GMT Subject: Re: git branch performance problem? Message-ID: In-Reply-To: 2007/10/10, Linus Torvalds : > IOW: alternates are dangerous. A shared object directory is dangerous. You > should basically only do it under very controlled circumstances, and > otherwise you should use either hardlinks or if you want added safety, > totally separate repositories. I recall reading a few months ago that it was "clone -l" that gave you the jeebies, rather than "clone -s". > So the rule really is: never *ever* do anything but fast-forward in a repo >[..] Methinks this is all too difficult. I will use clone -l henceforth. Is there any reason to prefer -s over -l? Given your lengthy exposition on the dangers of alternates, I would say this is a features that deserves to be buried or at least deemphasized in the documentation. For cherrypicking convenience, I would still appreciate it if there was a mechanism similar to alternates that would allow me to view objects from an alternate repo; objects found through this mechanism should never be assumed to be present in the database, of course. -- Han-Wen Nienhuys - hanwen@xs4all.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen