A confusing usage of the term 'successor' in the git glossary

A confusing usage of the term 'successor' in the git glossary

[Lee Doolan]

In the gitglossary
(http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitglossary.html) I
see this:
,----
| chain
|
| A list of objects, where each object in the list contains a reference
| to its successor (for example, the successor of a commit could be one
| of its parents).
`----


don't you mean predecessor instead of successor?

Re: A confusing usage of the term 'successor' in the git glossary

[Michael J Gruber]

Lee Doolan venit, vidit, dixit 31.10.2010 19:06:
> In the gitglossary
> (http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitglossary.html) I
> see this:
> ,----
> | chain
> |
> | A list of objects, where each object in the list contains a reference
> | to its successor (for example, the successor of a commit could be one
> | of its parents).
> `----
> 
> 
> don't you mean predecessor instead of successor?

In graph-theoretical terms, this is correct. Each commit contains
"pointers" (directed edges, arcs) pointing towards the parents. (There's
no way to point to children.) You can walk the graph only along directed
edges, i.e. towards parents. In that sense "parent" commits are the
successors (in the graph) of their "children".

So, there's an unavoidable conflict between the term in the underlying
data structure (directed acyclic tree) and the data it represents if you
thing of the latter as "childrenship" instead of "parentship".

Michael