RE: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

RE: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Randall S. Becker]

On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags 
>On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating
>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as
>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>
>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>       do
>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>       done
>>>
>>>
>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>
>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something
>> like (pardon a long line):
>>
>> git for-each-ref --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectname)%(end) %(refname)' refs/tags
>>
>> without any loop, I would think.
>Thanks. That helps.
>So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.

I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well written ones) that create tags as a record of automation activity. I am not sure we should be writing off the concept of unannotated tags entirely. This may cause breakage based on existing expectations of how tags work at present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, even if it's just the version of the automation being used, but I don't always get to have my wishes fulfilled. In essence, whatever behaviour a non-annotated tag has now may need to be emulated in future even if reconciliation happens. An option to preserve empty tag compatibility with pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly, I cannot supply examples of this usage based on a human memory page-fault and NDAs.

Cheers,
Randall

-- Brief whoami: NonStop&UNIX developer since approximately UNIX(421664400)/NonStop(211288444200000000)
-- In my real life, I talk too much.

Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Thomas Braun]

Am 23.11.2017 um 16:08 schrieb Randall S. Becker:

[...]

>> So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>> tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>> git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>> For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>> I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.

I'm using exclusively non-annotated tags. Why? Because that is the
default of "git tag" and I also, until now, never needed more than
giving a commit a "name".

Many annotated tag messages just repeat the tag name itself, so the
message seems quite redundant to me.

Just my 2 cents,
Thomas

Re: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[anatoly techtonik]

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Randall S. Becker
<rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
> On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>>Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags
>>On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating
>>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as
>>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>>
>>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>>       do
>>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>>       done
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>>
>>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something
>>> like (pardon a long line):
>>>
>>> git for-each-ref --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectname)%(end) %(refname)' refs/tags
>>>
>>> without any loop, I would think.
>>Thanks. That helps.
>>So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>>tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>>git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>>For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>>I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.
>
> I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well written ones) that create tags as a record of automation activity. I am not sure we should be writing off the concept of unannotated tags entirely. This may cause breakage based on existing expectations of how tags work at present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, even if it's just the version of the automation being used, but I don't always get to have my wishes fulfilled. In essence, whatever behaviour a non-annotated tag has now may need to be emulated in future even if reconciliation happens. An option to preserve empty tag compatibility with pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly, I cannot supply examples of this usage based on a human memory page-fault and NDAs.

Are there any windows for backward compatibility breaks, or git is
doomed to preserve it forever?
Automation without support won't survive for long, and people who rely
on that, like Chromium team, usually hard set the version used.
-- 
anatoly t.

Re: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 10:52 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Randall S. Becker
> <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>> On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>>>Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags
>>>On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating
>>>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as
>>>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>>>
>>>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>>>       do
>>>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>>>       done
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>>>
>>>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something
>>>> like (pardon a long line):
>>>>
>>>> git for-each-ref --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectname)%(end) %(refname)' refs/tags
>>>>
>>>> without any loop, I would think.
>>>Thanks. That helps.
>>>So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>>>tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>>>git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>>>For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>>>I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.
>>
>> I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well written ones) that create tags as a record of automation activity. I am not sure we should be writing off the concept of unannotated tags entirely. This may cause breakage based on existing expectations of how tags work at present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, even if it's just the version of the automation being used, but I don't always get to have my wishes fulfilled. In essence, whatever behaviour a non-annotated tag has now may need to be emulated in future even if reconciliation happens. An option to preserve empty tag compatibility with pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly, I cannot supply examples of this usage based on a human memory page-fault and NDAs.
>
> Are there any windows for backward compatibility breaks, or git is
> doomed to preserve it forever?
> Automation without support won't survive for long, and people who rely
> on that, like Chromium team, usually hard set the version used.

Git is not doomed to preserve anything forever. We've gradually broken
backwards compatibility for a few core things like these.

However, just as a bystander reading this thread I haven't seen any
compelling reason for why these should be removed. You initially had
questions about how to extract info about them, which you got answers
to.

So what reasons remain for why they need to be removed?

Re: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[anatoly techtonik]

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 1:24 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
<avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 10:52 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Randall S. Becker
>> <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>>> On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>>>>Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags
>>>>On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>>>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating
>>>>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as
>>>>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>>>>       do
>>>>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>>>>       done
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something
>>>>> like (pardon a long line):
>>>>>
>>>>> git for-each-ref --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectname)%(end) %(refname)' refs/tags
>>>>>
>>>>> without any loop, I would think.
>>>>Thanks. That helps.
>>>>So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>>>>tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>>>>git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>>>>For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>>>>I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.
>>>
>>> I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well written ones) that create tags as a record of automation activity. I am not sure we should be writing off the concept of unannotated tags entirely. This may cause breakage based on existing expectations of how tags work at present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, even if it's just the version of the automation being used, but I don't always get to have my wishes fulfilled. In essence, whatever behaviour a non-annotated tag has now may need to be emulated in future even if reconciliation happens. An option to preserve empty tag compatibility with pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly, I cannot supply examples of this usage based on a human memory page-fault and NDAs.
>>
>> Are there any windows for backward compatibility breaks, or git is
>> doomed to preserve it forever?
>> Automation without support won't survive for long, and people who rely
>> on that, like Chromium team, usually hard set the version used.
>
> Git is not doomed to preserve anything forever. We've gradually broken
> backwards compatibility for a few core things like these.
>
> However, just as a bystander reading this thread I haven't seen any
> compelling reason for why these should be removed. You initially had
> questions about how to extract info about them, which you got answers
> to.
>
> So what reasons remain for why they need to be removed?

To reduce complexity and prior knowledge when dealing with Git tags.

For example, http://readthedocs.io/ site contains a lot of broken
"Edit on GitHub" links, for example - http://git-memo.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

And it appeared that the reason for that is discrepancy between git
annotated and non-annotated tags. The pull request that fixes the issue
after it was researched and understood is simple
https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/pull/3302

However, while looking through linked issues and PRs, one can try to
imagine how many days it took for people to come up with the solution,
which came from this thread.
-- 
anatoly t.

Re: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Philip Oakley]

From: "anatoly techtonik" <techtonik@gmail.com>

comment at end - Philip

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 1:24 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
<avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 10:52 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik@gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Randall S. Becker
>> <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>>> On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>>>>Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags
>>>>On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> 
>>>>wrote:
>>>>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating
>>>>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as
>>>>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>>>>       do
>>>>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>>>>       done
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something
>>>>> like (pardon a long line):
>>>>>
>>>>> git 
>>>>> for-each-ref --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectname)%(end) 
>>>>> %(refname)' refs/tags
>>>>>
>>>>> without any loop, I would think.
>>>>Thanks. That helps.
>>>>So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>>>>tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>>>>git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>>>>For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>>>>I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.
>>>
>>> I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well 
>>> written ones) that create tags as a record of automation activity. I am 
>>> not sure we should be writing off the concept of unannotated tags 
>>> entirely. This may cause breakage based on existing expectations of how 
>>> tags work at present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, 
>>> even if it's just the version of the automation being used, but I don't 
>>> always get to have my wishes fulfilled. In essence, whatever behaviour a 
>>> non-annotated tag has now may need to be emulated in future even if 
>>> reconciliation happens. An option to preserve empty tag compatibility 
>>> with pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly, I cannot supply examples of 
>>> this usage based on a human memory page-fault and NDAs.
>>
>> Are there any windows for backward compatibility breaks, or git is
>> doomed to preserve it forever?
>> Automation without support won't survive for long, and people who rely
>> on that, like Chromium team, usually hard set the version used.
>
> Git is not doomed to preserve anything forever. We've gradually broken
> backwards compatibility for a few core things like these.
>
> However, just as a bystander reading this thread I haven't seen any
> compelling reason for why these should be removed. You initially had
> questions about how to extract info about them, which you got answers
> to.
>
> So what reasons remain for why they need to be removed?

To reduce complexity and prior knowledge when dealing with Git tags.

For example, http://readthedocs.io/ site contains a lot of broken
"Edit on GitHub" links, for example - 
http://git-memo.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

And it appeared that the reason for that is discrepancy between git
annotated and non-annotated tags. The pull request that fixes the issue
after it was researched and understood is simple
https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/pull/3302

However, while looking through linked issues and PRs, one can try to
imagine how many days it took for people to come up with the solution,
which came from this thread.
-- 
anatoly t.

>>>>>>>

So if I understand correctly, the hope is that `git show-ref --tags` could 
get an alternate option `--all-tags` [proper option name required...] such 
that the user would not have to develop the rather over the complicated 
expression that used a newish capability of a different command.

Would that be right?

Or at least update the man page docs to clarify the annotated vs 
non-annotated tags issue (many SO questions!).

And indicate if the --dereference and/or --hash options would do the 
trick! - maybe the "^{}" appended would be part of the problem (and need 
that new option "--objectreference" ).

Philip 

Re: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[anatoly techtonik]

On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 1:25 AM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> wrote:
> From: "anatoly techtonik" <techtonik@gmail.com>
>
> comment at end - Philip
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 1:24 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
> <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 10:52 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Randall S. Becker
>>> <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>>>>>
>>>>> Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags
>>>>> On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating
>>>>>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as
>>>>>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>>>>>       do
>>>>>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>>>>>       done
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something
>>>>>> like (pardon a long line):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> git for-each-ref
>>>>>> --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectname)%(end)
>>>>>> %(refname)' refs/tags
>>>>>>
>>>>>> without any loop, I would think.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks. That helps.
>>>>> So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all
>>>>> tags with commits that they point to, one would use:
>>>>> git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags>
>>>>> For so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>>>>> I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well
>>>> written ones) that create tags as a record of automation activity. I am not
>>>> sure we should be writing off the concept of unannotated tags entirely. This
>>>> may cause breakage based on existing expectations of how tags work at
>>>> present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, even if it's just
>>>> the version of the automation being used, but I don't always get to have my
>>>> wishes fulfilled. In essence, whatever behaviour a non-annotated tag has now
>>>> may need to be emulated in future even if reconciliation happens. An option
>>>> to preserve empty tag compatibility with pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly,
>>>> I cannot supply examples of this usage based on a human memory page-fault
>>>> and NDAs.
>>>
>>>
>>> Are there any windows for backward compatibility breaks, or git is
>>> doomed to preserve it forever?
>>> Automation without support won't survive for long, and people who rely
>>> on that, like Chromium team, usually hard set the version used.
>>
>>
>> Git is not doomed to preserve anything forever. We've gradually broken
>> backwards compatibility for a few core things like these.
>>
>> However, just as a bystander reading this thread I haven't seen any
>> compelling reason for why these should be removed. You initially had
>> questions about how to extract info about them, which you got answers
>> to.
>>
>> So what reasons remain for why they need to be removed?
>
>
> To reduce complexity and prior knowledge when dealing with Git tags.
>
> For example, http://readthedocs.io/ site contains a lot of broken
> "Edit on GitHub" links, for example -
> http://git-memo.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
>
> And it appeared that the reason for that is discrepancy between git
> annotated and non-annotated tags. The pull request that fixes the issue
> after it was researched and understood is simple
> https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/pull/3302
>
> However, while looking through linked issues and PRs, one can try to
> imagine how many days it took for people to come up with the solution,
> which came from this thread.
> --
> anatoly t.
>
>>>>>>>>
>
> So if I understand correctly, the hope is that `git show-ref --tags` could
> get an alternate option `--all-tags` [proper option name required...] such
> that the user would not have to develop the rather over the complicated
> expression that used a newish capability of a different command.
>
> Would that be right?

That's correct.

> Or at least update the man page docs to clarify the annotated vs
> non-annotated tags issue (many SO questions!).

Are there stats how many users read man pages and what is their
reading session length? I mean docs may not help much,

> And indicate if the --dereference and/or --hash options would do the trick!
> - maybe the "^{}" appended would be part of the problem (and need that new
> option "--objectreference" ).

--dereference would work if it didn't require extra processing.
It is hard to think about other option name that would give
desired result.

-- 
anatoly t.

Re: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Philip Oakley]

From: "anatoly techtonik" <techtonik@gmail.com>
> From: Philip Oakley
> > So if I understand correctly, the hope is that `git show-ref --tags` 
> > could
> > get an alternate option `--all-tags` [proper option name required...] 
> > such
> > that the user would not have to develop the rather over the complicated
> > expression that used a newish capability of a different command.
>
> > Would that be right?

> That's correct.

> > Or at least update the man page docs to clarify the annotated vs
> > non-annotated tags issue (many SO questions!).

> Are there stats how many users read man pages and what is their
> reading session length? I mean docs may not help much,

The "reading the manual" question is fairly well answered in the Human Error 
literature in terms of clarity and effectiveness, and the normal human error 
rates (for interest search for "Panko" "Spreadsheet errors" [1]). Typical 
human error rate is 1%. Most pilot error ends up being, in part, caused by 
confusing / incomplete manuals (i.e. we fail to support them).

If the manuals are the peak of perfection then they are well visited and the 
supporting material is usually good. If manuals are a sprawling upland with 
bogs, fissure, islands of inaccessability, then they are rarely used.

Git does suffer from having a lot of separate commands, which makes seeing 
the woods for the trees difficult sometimes, especially as its core concepts 
are not always well understood.

Improving the manuals (as reference material) will always help, even if the 
trickle down effect is slow (made worse by alternate sources of error - 
Stackoverflow and blogs... ;-)

> > And indicate if the --dereference and/or --hash options would do the 
> > trick!
> > - maybe the "^{}" appended would be part of the problem (and need that 
> > new
> > option "--objectreference" ).

> --dereference would work if it didn't require extra processing.
> It is hard to think about other option name that would give
> desired result.
> ---
> anatoly t.
--
Philip

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.02601  https://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.02601
"This paper reviews human cognition processes and shows first that humans 
cannot be error free no matter how hard they try, and second that our 
intuition about errors and how we can reduce them is based on appallingly 
bad knowledge." 

Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Junio C Hamano]

anatoly techtonik <techtonik@gmail.com> writes:

>> Git is not doomed to preserve anything forever. We've gradually broken
>> backwards compatibility for a few core things like these.
>>
>> However, just as a bystander reading this thread I haven't seen any
>> compelling reason for why these should be removed. You initially had
>> questions about how to extract info about them, which you got answers
>> to.
>>
>> So what reasons remain for why they need to be removed?
>
> To reduce complexity and prior knowledge when dealing with Git tags.

Then you are barking up a wrong tree, I would have to say.  If you
do not think non-annotated tags are serving any good purpose in the
context of _a_ project you are involved in and making your life
miserable because some tags are and other tags are not annotated,
suggest to _that_ project to refrain from using non-annotated tags.

Projects that do use non-annotated tags have chosen to use them for
reasons of their own.  It may be that these tags could be annotated
tags instead for some projects, and depending on their tooling there
might be no downside in switching.  Or they may have chosen to use
non-annotated tags for reasons that you do not know.

RE: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags

[Randall S. Becker]

On November 24, 2017 4:52 AM anatoly techtonik wrote:
>On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Randall S. Becker <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>> On 2017-11-23 02:31 (GMT-05:00) anatoly techtonik wrote
>>>Subject: Re: Unify annotated and non-annotated tags On Sat, Nov 11, 
>>>2017 at 5:06 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>>> Igor Djordjevic <igor.d.djordjevic@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> If you would like to mimic output of "git show-ref", repeating 
>>>>> commits for each tag pointing to it and showing full tag name as 
>>>>> well, you could do something like this, for example:
>>>>>
>>>>>       for tag in $(git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/tags)
>>>>>       do
>>>>>               printf '%s %s\n' "$(git rev-parse $tag^0)" "$tag"
>>>>>       done
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hope that helps a bit.
>>>>
>>>> If you use for-each-ref's --format option, you could do something 
>>>> like (pardon a long line):
>>>>
>>>> git for-each-ref 
>>>> --format='%(if)%(*objectname)%(then)%(*objectname)%(else)%(objectnam
>>>> e)%(end) %(refname)' refs/tags
>>>>
>>>> without any loop, I would think.
>>>Thanks. That helps.
>>>So my proposal is to get rid of non-annotated tags, so to get all tags 
>>>with commits that they point to, one would use:
>>>git for-each-ref --format='%(*objectname) %(refname)' refs/tags> For 
>>>so-called non-annotated tags just leave the message empty.
>>>I don't see why anyone would need non-annotated tags though.
>>
>> I have seen non-annotated tags used in automations (not necessarily well written ones) that
>> create tags as a record of automation activity. I am not sure we should be writing off the
>> concept of unannotated tags entirely. This may cause breakage based on existing expectations
>> of how tags work at present. My take is that tags should include whodunnit, even if it's just the
>> version of the automation being used, but I don't always get to have my wishes fulfilled. In
>> essence, whatever behaviour a non-annotated tag has now may need to be emulated in
>> future even if reconciliation happens. An option to preserve empty tag compatibility with
>> pre-2.16 behaviour, perhaps? Sadly, I cannot supply examples of this usage based on a
>> human memory page-fault and NDAs.
>Are there any windows for backward compatibility breaks, or git is doomed to preserve it forever?
>Automation without support won't survive for long, and people who rely on that,
>like Chromium team, usually hard set the version used.

Just pointing out that changing the semantics of a basic data item in git may have unintended consequences.