Re: What is missing from Git v2.0

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 22, 2014, 22:19 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqioq12eif.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <vpqlhux3yhr.fsf@anie.imag.fr>

Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Why is not material for v2.0? Because you say so? Are you going to wait another
>> ten years to introduce this to v3.0?
>
> There's no need to wait for a 3.0 to introduce this. If these would
> be low-priority compared to user-defined aliases, there's no backward
> compatibility issue, it can very well be a 2.1, or whatever number comes
> after 2.0.

I do not think the discussion has analysed the issue deeply enough for us to tell what the final proposal would look like, in order to judge what kind of issues, whether related to backward compatibility or not, are involved. My hunch is that this may not have to wait for a big version bump, but I am not sure about that at this point.

Also I do not think 3.0 has to wait for ten years, either.

We started discussing incompatible updates for 2.0 in earnest during the v1.8.2 timeframe, which was tagged mid-March 2013 with a release notes with a "B/c notes for 2.0" section, but IIRC the discussion of many of the "let's make things consistent (even if that means we have to break existing users), and devise ways to make the transtion for them as smooth as possible" changes that finally is going to happen in v2.0 have been in the works since the v1.7.x era (tagged late January 2012). While I do not want to rush things late in a cycle (notice how many topics are still cooking in 'next' and will continue to be in preparation for 2.1 right now), I do not think it is warranted to have a panic "3.0 will be ten years out, and we will miss the boat if we do not cram this in some shape into 2.0"---that kind of haste simply is not necessary.

Even if we end up having to wait for 3.0, it will happen within two years max, if not earlier.