Re: Making git disappear when talking about my code (was: Re: GIT vs Other: Need argument)

[Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>]

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On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:07:23 -0400 (EDT), Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> With all the safeties (reflogs, etc) this warning could be toned down
> even more now.

That would definitely help.

> To me it looks like Git would perform some hardcoded magic without
> helping the user understanding what is going on.

That's a fine argument.

> If you really want people to get at your code with no Git consideration
> what so ever, then just direct them at the corresponding gitweb and/or
> git-archive invocations with --remote=<repo> to store a local copy.

But that's just it. It's not that I want people to get at my code with
no git consideration. I believe that git provides the best way to get
at my code, (since it allows not just getting at a single snapshot
like git-archive would), but it allows for getting at everything in
the past as well, and easily getting at stuff in the future.

It's more that I want a single way to talk about some branch I've just
published, (necessarily both a url and a branch), and I assume an
audience with a wide range of git experience, (from none to lots).
So I'm just looking for a simple way to advertise the branch that will
work for the whole audience, (gitweb and git-archive aren't going to
be much use for the experienced git user---except in an indirect way
where the user could manually extract the useful parts of the
instructions out of the noise).

> And why again isn't detached head just fine for your usage scenario
> instead? Only the "obnoxious" warning?

No ability to easily follow the branch as new stuff comes along.

Compare what one used to be able to do with pre-separate-remotes git:

	git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
	git checkout next
	git pull # occasionally

to what you have now:

	git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
	git checkout origin/next

And what's step 3 to follow this branch? Certainly, doing "git fetch"
occasionally brings in the data, but there's no simple way to use
detached head to just "follow along".

So then the user has to learn new concepts like creating a tracking
branch:

	git branch --track next origin/next
	git checkout next
	git pull # occasionally

You can say that's just a series of simple commands, but it's still
more concepts and commands than other systems, (including past
versions of git).

And for the user that's really just doing read-only branch tracking, I
don't see where there's much benefit coming from the extra concepts
and commands.

-Carl

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