[RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[moreau francis]

Hi GIT folks.

I'm a complete newbie on git development so excuse me if
this idea is completely stupid.

Would it be possible to let the user stick a short explanation
on  what a branch is supposed to implement during its creation.

That is

$ git branch --topic "Implement a killer feature \
> This set of patches add the foo feature to GIT" mybranch master

Then it would be possible with another command to consult this topic
after a while. And even more useful, when generating the patch set
with the following git command

$ git-format-patch -n HEAD master

it uses the topic branch to generate as first patch a summary
of the patch serie. That is

"""
Subject: [PATCH 0/n] Implement a killer feature

This This set of patches add the foo feature to GIT.
"""

Is it useless ?

Thanks

Francis

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Jakub Narebski]

moreau francis wrote:

> Hi GIT folks.
> 
> I'm a complete newbie on git development so excuse me if
> this idea is completely stupid.
> 
> Would it be possible to let the user stick a short explanation
> on  what a branch is supposed to implement during its creation.

It would be possible when/if branch and remotes config would migrate
to .git/config. Currently too many I think relies on refs/heads being
simple sha1 of "top" commit.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Sat, 8 Jul 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote:

> moreau francis wrote:
> 
> > Hi GIT folks.
> > 
> > I'm a complete newbie on git development so excuse me if
> > this idea is completely stupid.
> > 
> > Would it be possible to let the user stick a short explanation
> > on  what a branch is supposed to implement during its creation.
> 
> It would be possible when/if branch and remotes config would migrate
> to .git/config. Currently too many I think relies on refs/heads being
> simple sha1 of "top" commit.

But it does not need a change of existing practice at all! Just add the 
information provided by --topic as branch."pathname".description to the 
config. And make format-patch aware of that.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Jakub Narebski]

Johannes Schindelin wrote:


> On Sat, 8 Jul 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> 
>> moreau francis wrote:
>> 
>>> Would it be possible to let the user stick a short explanation
>>> on  what a branch is supposed to implement during its creation.
>> 
>> It would be possible when/if branch and remotes config would migrate
>> to .git/config. Currently too many I think relies on refs/heads being
>> simple sha1 of "top" commit.
> 
> But it does not need a change of existing practice at all! Just add the 
> information provided by --topic as branch."pathname".description to the 
> config. And make format-patch aware of that.

And make tools remove stale descriptions. I sometimes rename branches "by
hand", as currently there is I think no tool for this...

By the way, did this series of patches (adding support for branch and
remotes configuretion to config file) made into 'next', 'master' or even
'pu', or after some discussion it stalled?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Sun, 9 Jul 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote:

> By the way, did this series of patches (adding support for branch and
> remotes configuretion to config file) made into 'next', 'master' or even
> 'pu', or after some discussion it stalled?

The latter. Some parts are there (the remote configuration made it in 
AFAIK) but things like the default remote(s) to fetch / push are not.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Marco Costalba]

On 7/8/06, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> moreau francis wrote:
>
> > Hi GIT folks.
> >
> > I'm a complete newbie on git development so excuse me if
> > this idea is completely stupid.
> >
> > Would it be possible to let the user stick a short explanation
> > on  what a branch is supposed to implement during its creation.
>
> It would be possible when/if branch and remotes config would migrate
> to .git/config. Currently too many I think relies on refs/heads being
> simple sha1 of "top" commit.
>

It is possible to add a message (and more) to a tag creating a tag
object. FWIK this is not allowed for the other refs.

Why there is this (artifical?) difference between tags and the other
kind of refs?


   Marco

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Sun, 9 Jul 2006, Marco Costalba wrote:

> It is possible to add a message (and more) to a tag creating a tag
> object. FWIK this is not allowed for the other refs.
> 
> Why there is this (artifical?) difference between tags and the other
> kind of refs?

The tag message is nothing else than a commit message. The 
(artificial-but-on-purpose) difference is that you are not supposed to 
change a tag ref, whereas a regular ref pointing to a commit is _expected_ 
to point to some other commit in the future.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Petr Baudis]

  Hi,

Dear diary, on Sun, Jul 09, 2006 at 04:33:53PM CEST, I got a letter
where Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> said that...
> On Sun, 9 Jul 2006, Marco Costalba wrote:
> 
> > It is possible to add a message (and more) to a tag creating a tag
> > object. FWIK this is not allowed for the other refs.
> > 
> > Why there is this (artifical?) difference between tags and the other
> > kind of refs?
> 
> The tag message is nothing else than a commit message.

  huh?

  The tag message is a message in the "freeform" part of the tag object,
but disregarding the format similiraties, it has really nothing to do
with a commit message. (Also, commit messages don't tend to be commonly
PGP signed. ;-)

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/
Snow falling on Perl. White noise covering line noise.
Hides all the bugs too. -- J. Putnam

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006, Petr Baudis wrote:

>   Hi,
> 
> Dear diary, on Sun, Jul 09, 2006 at 04:33:53PM CEST, I got a letter
> where Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> said that...
> > On Sun, 9 Jul 2006, Marco Costalba wrote:
> > 
> > > It is possible to add a message (and more) to a tag creating a tag
> > > object. FWIK this is not allowed for the other refs.
> > > 
> > > Why there is this (artifical?) difference between tags and the other
> > > kind of refs?
> > 
> > The tag message is nothing else than a commit message.
> 
>   huh?
> 
>   The tag message is a message in the "freeform" part of the tag object,
> but disregarding the format similiraties, it has really nothing to do
> with a commit message. (Also, commit messages don't tend to be commonly
> PGP signed. ;-)

Marco was talking about an "artificial difference", which means technical 
issues. From a technical viewpoint, the tag message is _exactly_ the same 
as a commit message.

Hth,
Dscho

Re: [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Pavel Roskin]

Hello!

On Sat, 2006-07-08 at 15:55 +0000, moreau francis wrote:
> Hi GIT folks.
> 
> I'm a complete newbie on git development so excuse me if
> this idea is completely stupid.
> 
> Would it be possible to let the user stick a short explanation
> on  what a branch is supposed to implement during its creation.

Just for your information, this is already implemented by StGIT.  For
instance, .git/patches/master/description contains the description of
the "master" branch.

If you run "stg branch --list", the branch descriptions will be listed.
I'm not aware of any commands to change the description.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

Re : [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[moreau francis]

> Just for your information, this is already implemented by StGIT.  For
> instance, .git/patches/master/description contains the description of
> the "master" branch.

well I'm using plain git for now. And it doesn't seem to be a high level
 feature.
 
 Another point to this would be to show this set of patch and its summary
 threaded under a mailer. I use thunderbird, and it's possible to use threaded
 view which is very convinient. I don't know how it works, but see the set of
 patchs like:
 
 [PATCH 0/3] Summary of the set
                     |
                    + [PATCH 1/4] blababla
                     + [PATCH 2/4] another useful commit
                    + [PATCH 3/4] ...
 
 would be great !
 
 Francis
 
 PS: please CC me when answering.

Re: Re : [RFC] just an (stupid) idea when creating a new branch

[Junio C Hamano]

moreau francis <francis_moreau2000@yahoo.fr> writes:

>  I don't know how it works, but see the set of
>  patchs like:
>  
>  [PATCH 0/3] Summary of the set
>                      |
>                     + [PATCH 1/4] blababla
>                      + [PATCH 2/4] another useful commit
>                     + [PATCH 3/4] ...
>  
>  would be great !

Doing the cover letter is primarily a job of the patch
submitter, and I think git-send-email has some support for that.