Re: [PATCH 13/16] init: allow alternate backends to be set for new repos

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 5, 2016, 18:03 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqk2nnkio4.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <1452014787.3892.40.camel@twopensource.com>

David Turner <dturner@twopensource.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I'm working on the rest now, but wanted to comment on this first.  I
> went ahead and made this change, but I'm not sure I like it.  In the
> git codebase, the concept will continue to be called "backend"; there
> are already-accepted patches using that terminology.  Having two
> separate names for the same thing seems confusing to me.

We have the option to update whatever "are already-accepted" [*1*]. That would allow us to uniformly call it "ref storage", if we wanted to.

In any case, we shouldn't be using an unqualified "backend" (or "storage" for that matter); we should always say "ref", i.e. either "ref backend" or "ref storage", in the name.

Between "backend" and "storage", I am slightly in favor of the latter, but I am not good at naming things so...

[Footnote]

*1* Output from

    $ git grep backend master --

seems to show me only

    master:refs.c: * The backend-independent part of the reference module.

and all others are other kinds of backends, e.g. "merge backend", "http-backend", etc. so that may not be too bad.