From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Howells Subject: Re: [PATCH] Simplified GIT usage guide Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 01:12:56 +0000 Organization: Red Hat UK Ltd. Registered Address: Red Hat UK Ltd, Amberley Place, 107-111 Peascod Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SI4 1TE, United Kingdom. Registered in England and Wales under Company Registration No. 3798903 Message-ID: <32096.1229130776@redhat.com> References: <20081212190900.GL5691@genesis.frugalware.org> <20081212185347.GK5691@genesis.frugalware.org> <20081212182827.28408.40963.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <28996.1229108561@redhat.com> Cc: dhowells@redhat.com, torvalds@osdl.org, git@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org To: Miklos Vajna X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sat Dec 13 02:14:58 2008 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 1LBJ5s-0001nq-NU for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:14:57 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753328AbYLMBNj (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:13:39 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753166AbYLMBNj (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:13:39 -0500 Received: from mx2.redhat.com ([66.187.237.31]:59053 "EHLO mx2.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752778AbYLMBNi (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:13:38 -0500 Received: from int-mx2.corp.redhat.com (int-mx2.corp.redhat.com [172.16.27.26]) by mx2.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id mBD1CxSN005869; Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:12:59 -0500 Received: from ns3.rdu.redhat.com (ns3.rdu.redhat.com [10.11.255.199]) by int-mx2.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id mBD1Cvuu031021; Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:12:58 -0500 Received: from warthog.cambridge.redhat.com (kibblesnbits.boston.devel.redhat.com [10.16.60.12]) by ns3.rdu.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id mBD1Cue3024835; Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:12:57 -0500 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=redhat.com) by warthog.cambridge.redhat.com with esmtp (Exim 4.68 #1 (Red Hat Linux)) id 1LBJ3w-0008Lh-Kd; Sat, 13 Dec 2008 01:12:56 +0000 In-Reply-To: <20081212190900.GL5691@genesis.frugalware.org> X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.58 on 172.16.27.26 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Miklos Vajna wrote: > > > Is there any reason you hide the tag object? > > > > What's a tag object? > > http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitglossary.html#def_tag_object Okay. I do mention tags. How they're stored in the database is irrelevant. As far as most users need be concerned, a tag is a symbolic representation of a particular commit in the tree; a particular state of the source tree. Think of symbolic links as an analogy. Most users just need to know that a symlink represents the location of another part of the VFS tree; actually most users will just think of them as a pointer to the name of a file, if even that much. The fact that, say, ReiserFS tail packs them because they tend to be small, or that AFS symlinks have weird properties that encode mountpoints is irrelevant to most users. You don't need to know that to use them. Yes, GIT's database has blob objects, tree objects, commit objects and tag objects; but as far as the normal user is concerned, it stores files, lists of files (directories or, more probably, folders), commits and tags. The physical low-level stuff is completely irrelevant. There is one exception to that: commit IDs. These are public-facing as it were. GIT waves them in your face, and you have to use them occasionally, so it's useful to say a bit about them. David