Re: GTP/0.1 terminology 101: commit reels and references

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Sam Vilain <sam@vilain.net> writes:

>>   Commit reels can also, and generally do, include the objects required
>>  for a specific commit.
>
> Yes.  The only times where they wouldn't contain all the objects
> required for the commits within the reel, is when those objects happened
> to be contained by a previous reel.

What do you mean by "previous" reel?  It is not quite defined in your
message but perhaps defined elsewhere?

How is this different from a bundle?  Does a reel, unlike a bundle,
contain the full tree for the bottom commits? 

> This is one of the design decisions which I think may be a mistake; a
> less expensive to calculate definition of a reel would be *all* objects
> between the starting and ending Reference objects.

Do you mean all such objects and nothing else?  That would imply that a
reel is quite similar to a bundle (but neither rev-list --objects-edge
nor bundle guarantees that the result is minimal).