Re: [PATCH] pack-protocol: mention and point to docs for protocol v2

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 24, 2018, 19:57 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq8t60xv7l.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20180724181913.GA225275@google.com>

Brandon Williams <bmwill@google.com> writes:

Show 24 quoted lines

>> Not about this patch, but I wonder if an organization along the
>> following lines would make sense?
>> 
>>  1. Rename pack-protocol.txt to protocol-v1.txt.  Rename
>>     protocol-v2.txt to pack-protocol.txt.
>> 
>>  2. Make pack-protocol.txt self-contained, and remove any redundant
>>     sections from protocol-v1.txt.
>> 
>>  3. Add a new protocol-v2.txt that briefly describes the benefits and
>>     highlights of protocol v2, referring to pack-protocol.txt for
>>     details.
>> 
>> That way, newcomers of the future could read pack-protocol.txt and
>> quickly glean the main protocol in (then) current use.
>> 
>> What do you think?
>
> I dislike the idea of renaming protocol-v2.txt to pack-protocol.txt.  I
> agree that we should probably have protocol-v1 broken out into its own
> file, taking the parts from pack-protocol.txt, but what really should
> happen is that pack-protocol.txt could describe the basics of the wire
> protocol (pkt-lines, the format of the various transports, etc) and then
> refer to the protocol-v{1,2}.txt documents themselves.

WRT the naming, are we happy with the idea of (1) pretending that when we say 'protocol', there is nothing but the on-the-wire pkt-line protocol (i.e. that is why we call "protocol-v2" without giving any other adjective---are we sure we won't have need for any other kind of protocol?) and (2) tying the "pack" ness to the name of on-the-wire pkt-line protocol (i.e. that is where the name of the original pack-protocol.txt came from, as it started only for the packfile transfer---are we happy to keep newer protocols tied to "pack" the same way)?