sane, stable renames; when a commit should commit twice

[Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net>]

When should a commit, commit twice?

When one or more git mv file renames/ moves are involved.

In such a case the commit ought to be split into two. Perhaps move the
files in the first commit, then make the changes needed to support the
move in the build chain (including changes in the moved files) in the
second commit.

This keeps a clean record of the move, making the move, and the
associated changes (as two commits) a clean cherry.

Does this make sense?

I develop in the java world, and we use packages (directories, and
subdirectories, sub-sub... etc) a lot, and so it is not uncommon in my
10 years development, to decide to reorganise some package/dir every now
and then, and files, and whole dirs, get moved.

I've only been using git for a few weeks, but finding it truly awesome!
A little demanding in the initial learning curve - took me three days of
reading and a little experiementation here and there, before I finally
felt comfortable with rebasing, branching, etc, to effect my work
pattern.

Have used arch/tla, a little bzr, aegis for a couple of years long time
ago, some cvs, and bk for four months or so.

I'm hoping that the above workflow, which has just crystallized for me
in the last two days, makes sense.

zen

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