Re: [RFD] Notes are independent: proposal for new notes implementation

[Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 9 Feb 2010, Avery Pennarun wrote:
> 2010/2/9 Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>:

> > But
> > what if the answer was to change implementation, decoupling history of
> > notes from each other, and keeping history of each note separate.
> 
> Congratulations, you've re-invented CVS! :)
> 
> Seriously though, I'm not sure what problems this solved.  Notes that
> are related to each other can (and perhaps should) be in the same
> notes commit history; notes that are not related to each other can
> exist in separate histories with their own ref.

The problem is (as I see it) that notes are _not_ (in almost all cases)
related to each other, just like files in $HOME or in /etc are not
related to each other.  Separate notes refs for separate histories
are not IMHO a good solution: refs namespaces are about *kind* (flavor)
of notes: commits annotations, bisect, git-svn, apply-email, bugs / tickets,
etc. and each flavor (kind) of notes contain many independent notes.
 
This is opposed to workspace history, where history (in almost all cases)
makes sense only of all files, history of a project as a whole.

And of course we would have atomic commits, merge tracking, support for
renames etc., something like Zit[1]

[1]: http://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/InterfacesFrontendsAndTools#Zit

> > This means for example that if in repository A somebody annotated
> > commits foo and bar creating notes in this order, and in repository B
> > somebody annotated bar and foo (creating notes in reverse order), then
> > merging those changes would require generating merge commit even if
> > those notes are identical.
> 
> That's a feature; now you have the true history of your notes, which
> is good for all the same reasons it's good in git.

No, you are introducing artificial ordering in something that is a bag,
unordered collection.

> Of course this whole line of reasoning could lead to questions like
> "can I rebase my notes history?" and "what about rebase -i" and "can I
> maintain a notes patch queue" and so on.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland