From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Kastrup Subject: Re: Terminology question about remote branches. Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 18:23:42 +0200 Message-ID: <85bqdm6jch.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <854pjfin68.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <20070804092933.aaec6d52.seanlkml@sympatico.ca> <85ejijgzzg.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <20070805100532.GG12507@coredump.intra.peff.net> <85172807-B7EB-47DD-813E-FAF5894E1190@zib.de> <20070805110200.GA18083@coredump.intra.peff.net> <85tzre8b4w.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <20070805115208.GA19734@coredump.intra.peff.net> <85fy2y89kb.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <20070805154801.GD28263@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Jeff King , git@vger.kernel.org To: Theodore Tso X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Aug 05 18:39:33 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IHj8b-0006HV-FL for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Sun, 05 Aug 2007 18:39:29 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756199AbXHEQjN (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Aug 2007 12:39:13 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753289AbXHEQjM (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Aug 2007 12:39:12 -0400 Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:40403 "EHLO fencepost.gnu.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756199AbXHEQjL (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Aug 2007 12:39:11 -0400 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lola.goethe.zz) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IHjAr-0003jj-O3; Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:41:49 -0400 Received: by lola.goethe.zz (Postfix, from userid 1002) id ABEDB1C3D500; Sun, 5 Aug 2007 18:23:42 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <20070805154801.GD28263@thunk.org> (Theodore Tso's message of "Sun\, 5 Aug 2007 11\:48\:01 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1.50 (gnu/linux) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Theodore Tso writes: > To use a GNU emacs example, consider M-x customize, which is this > huge, very fancy, *very* complex hierarchical mechanism with a > pointy-clicky interface for setting options. Most emacs experts > wouldn't use it, preferring to open code raw emacs-lisp settings in > their .emacs.el. If you ask an old-time emacs user how to set up > some specific feature setting via M-x customize, they might look at > you blankly, because it's not an interface they use much, if at all. Well, let me throw you back one of your questions: do you have any statistics backing this up? As to anecdotal evidence: I am an old-time Emacs user, and I pretty much use customize _exclusively_ since it generally leaves me with a _working_ configuration even when the DOC string might be sub-optimal or misleading or hard to understand, and it makes sure that, say, everything to make a global minor mode _active_ (like loading some file, or calling some initialization functions) is done at the right point of time. If "old-time Emacs users" would not use customize, why would pretty much _every_ package come with _working_ defcustoms? Who writes and _tests_ those defcustoms if not the "old-time Emacs users"? > A similar thing can be said of "git branch"; once you are familiar > with how git works at a conceptual level, it can often be > faster/easier to just hack the .git/config file directly, instead of > using "git branch" to set up things the way you want. And I'm > pretty sure there are ways to set up the config file when you edit > it by hand that you can't set up via "git branch". Sure. But we don't want to _require_ this sort of special knowledge before one can even hope to do some basic task. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum