Re: Tilde spec - befuzzled

[Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>]

On 02/29/2012 02:18 AM, Andrew Ardill wrote:
> On 29 February 2012 06:20, Junio C Hamano<gitster@pobox.com>  wrote:
>> Thomas Rast<trast@inf.ethz.ch>  writes:
>>
>>>>> '<rev>{tilde}<n>', e.g. 'master{tilde}3'::
>>>>> A suffix '{tilde}<n>' to a revision parameter means the commit
>>>>> object that is the<n>th generation grand-parent of the named
>>>>> commit object, following only the first parents.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hang on, *grand*-parents?
>>>>> ...
>>>
>>> Perhaps we should reword it as "n-th first-parent ancestor"?  Barring
>>> confusion about the position of the dashes, that leaves little room for
>>> error.
>>
>> I think we could either go "easier to read but not precise"
>>
>>         ... that is the<n>th generation (grand-)parent of ...
>>
>> or "may sound scary but correct"
>>
>>         the ancestor reached by walking the first-parent chain<n>  times
>>
>> I am not sure which bucket "n-th first-parent ancestor" falls into.
> 
> The terms might be too technical, however my understanding was that
> HEAD^n takes<n>  steps along a breadth-first traversal of the commit
> tree rooted at HEAD, while HEAD~n uses a depth-first traversal.
> 
> A better form for the description might come from that formulation of
> the process, rather than the 'generational' formulation.
> 

I doubt it. Most non-programmers have no notion of the difference
between breadth-first and depth-first. You have to work with trees 
or graphs in some form before breadth and depth become intuitive
to read in tech docs.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

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