From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Branches & directories
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:13:01 -0500
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Cc: Hilco Wijbenga <hilco.wijbenga@gmail.com>,
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	Evan Shelhamer <shelhamer@imaginarynumber.net>,
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To: Michael Witten <mfwitten@gmail.com>
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Hi Michael,

Michael Witten wrote:

> As an aside, the problem here is likely a manifestation of the fact
> that nobody understands what a branch is

I agree with Michael J Gruber that this is not the useful kind of
hyperbole.

In olden times, there was more talk of the refs in the refs/heads/
hierarchy as being branch heads which point to the tip of a particular
branch of history.  That is still exactly what they are.  By abuse of
language, people sometimes use the term "branch" as a synonym when
there is little risk of confusion.

If you have found tutorial documentation that is confusing on this
point, by all means, fix it.  You are talking as though a
documentation bug is a fundamental design flaw that cannot be fixed by
the likes of you and me.