Re: Barebone Porcelain. Where to stop?

[Frank Sorenson <frank@tuxrocks.com>]

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Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>>I don't see git going towards stgit at all. Indeed, it gets closer to
>>cogito but I still like cogito over plain git since it's easier to use
>>(my goal, though, is to add pull/clone commands to stgit so that one
>>doesn't need to rely on directly using other tools).
> 
> All good to hear.  I do not speak for Linus, but I think core
> should not be competing with Porcelain.  To me, there are four
> purposes for the barebone Porcelain layer:
> 
>  (1) provide the end user a minimum UI to do essential things.
> 
>  (2) codify the BCP/convention to use the core by higher level
>      SCMs to help them stay compatible with each other where
>      possible (e.g. "what .git/HEAD means, when it gets updated,
>      and to what" was discussed recently).
> 
>  (3) serve as an example for people interested in learning the
>      core GIT (i.e. they may be starting their own Porcelain).
> 
>  (4) implement operations that are heavy on logic/convention but
>      does not have much UI need so that higher level SCMs can
>      implement their own UI by just being a thin wrapper around
>      them (e.g. clone/fetch and push).

These all sound good.  Along the lines of #4, one potential purpose I've
been curious about is the possibility of pulling these core operations
out into a library that Porcelain could use directly.  This way,
Porcelain, including the minimum git UI (your #1), could directly link
in and call the needed functions, and rather than stringing sequences of
git-whatever commands together in a shell script.

This would allow Porcelain to take advantage of the core git more
directly, and would improve the speed of Porcelain.  The minimum UI (#1)
would be a much simpler example (#3), since it would only be the
front-end, rather than the front-end/back-end combination it is now.

Is this something we want to consider, or am I out in left field? :)

Frank
- --
Frank Sorenson - KD7TZK
Systems Manager, Computer Science Department
Brigham Young University
frank@tuxrocks.com
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