From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff King Subject: Re: [doc] User Manual Suggestion Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:34:48 -0400 Message-ID: <20090429063448.GA22448@coredump.intra.peff.net> References: <200904240051.46233.johan@herland.net> <200904242230.13239.johan@herland.net> <20090424213848.GA14493@coredump.intra.peff.net> <4E155CC5-B20A-4B79-8CBF-9D1E0E36920F@boostpro.com> <20090425003531.GA18125@coredump.intra.peff.net> <1A9F6DB0-983F-4A5B-B3B7-33227C11F36A@boostpro.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: David Abrahams X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Apr 29 08:35:02 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Lz3Nk-0005DL-Dz for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:35:00 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751682AbZD2Gev (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:34:51 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751465AbZD2Gev (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:34:51 -0400 Received: from peff.net ([208.65.91.99]:59449 "EHLO peff.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750965AbZD2Geu (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:34:50 -0400 Received: (qmail 3122 invoked by uid 107); 29 Apr 2009 06:35:03 -0000 Received: from coredump.intra.peff.net (HELO coredump.intra.peff.net) (10.0.0.2) by peff.net (qpsmtpd/0.40) with (AES128-SHA encrypted) SMTP; Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:35:03 -0400 Received: by coredump.intra.peff.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:34:48 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1A9F6DB0-983F-4A5B-B3B7-33227C11F36A@boostpro.com> Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 08:53:37PM -0400, David Abrahams wrote: >> Actually, it is not the generally of trees that I think is interesting >> there, but the generality of _objects_. That is, each of those things is >> a first-class object, and has a unique name by which it can be >> referred. > > I'm sorry, but I think most people would find that so unremarkable that > making a big deal about it would lead to "what am I missing here" > confusion. Maybe a person who's exclusively used CVS (or older) > technologies before coming to Git would be happy to know that, but it's > sort of obvious. In CVS the lack of first-class directories sticks out > like a sore thumb. Sadly, I was away from email all weekend and so missed the ensuing storm in this thread. :) However, I did want to respond to this one point. To me (and I am talking from personal experience, so it really may be _just_ me), an important part of understanding git was understanding the object storage. That is, half of the idea of git is a big database of content-addressable objects. The _other_ half is the actual VCS built on top of it. ;) And by understanding that, and the places where objects refer to each other (commits point to other commits and to trees, trees point to blobs, blobs are always leaves), I find it easier to understand what each operation is doing. And that if I'm unsure of something, I can always inspect it at many levels. I don't know. Maybe that is too low-level for most people. I did end up working on git, so perhaps I am inordinately interested. -Peff