Re: [RFC] new subcommand: git sync

[Jean-Marie Lemetayer <jeanmarie.lemetayer@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 5:42 PM Randall S. Becker
<rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
>
> On February 26, 2021 10:25 AM, : Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> > To: Jean-Marie Lemetayer <jeanmarie.lemetayer@gmail.com>
> > Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
> > Subject: Re: [RFC] new subcommand: git sync
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 26 2021, Jean-Marie Lemetayer wrote:
> >
> > > Hi folks,
> > >
> > > I created a new "git sync" sub-command a few months ago to deal with
> > > the pull request workflow.
> > >
> > > Its goals are to:
> > >  - keep all configured branches synchronized with the remotes
> > > (--set-upstream)
> > >  - do not touch your wip feature branches (which has diverged from
> > > upstream)
> > >  - prune the remotes
> > >
> > > As I use it on a daily basis, to synchronize the remotes and then be
> > > able to quickly rebase my pull requests. I think it's worth sharing. What do
> > you think?
> > >
> > > For now it is a simple shell script available here:
> > > https://github.com/jmlemetayer/one-time-setup/blob/main/git-sync
> > >
> > > If you think it's a good idea, I'll propose a series of patches with
> > > the new sub-command, the manual page and the associated tests.
> >
> > Have you seen 'git branch -v' and 'git branch -v --format=*'? There seems to
> > be a high amount of overlap between this wrapper you've written and it.
> >
> > I suspect most of what you have here could be turned into an %(if:*)
> > directive where you emit the pull/push command as appropriate.
> >
> > If you search the internet for "git-sync" there's dozens of such command
> > (and I've personally observed at least two of them being written by co-
> > workers in real time, not sure if either of those is in the Google results).
> >
> > So I think there's probably a worthwhile problem to be solved here that
> > could be turned into patches to git.git, something between "git [clone|push]
> > --mirror" and "git branch -v".
> >
> > I don't think there's any interest in getting new shellscript built-ins in the
> > future. We've been actively migrating away from those.
> >
> > But most of the logic in your script is just calling the ref-filter.c API behind the
> > scenes.
> >
> > B.t.w. you can probably speed up & simplify your script a lot by making use of
> > IFS="" in the shell and not calling N for-each-ref commands when it seems to
> > me that one invocation would do. Just dump the N fields you need split on
> > some token, and split on that token in your loop.
>
> Yeah, I'm one of those that has made extensive use of the name "sync" when using git to synchronize between (POSIX) OSS/USS and (Non-POSIX) NonStop/MVS respectively. If you're going somewhere with it, could I suggest something like "reconcile" or of it is specific to the pull workflow, maybe "pull-sync"? I agree that scripts are not desirable long-term.

Thanks for the feedback !

To sum up -- if I have the time to do it -- I must do it in native C
and not use a generic name like "sync".

As it is a way to keep my branches up to date with the remotes, maybe
create an option for the "git branch" submodule instead of a new
subcommand? Maybe "git branch --synchronize" or something better ...

As using "Pull request" is not the only way to use this command and
also because there is a big trolling issue with the termes"Pull
request" and "Merge request" I don't think using "pull-sync" is a good
idea either.

I know that the first golden rule of coding is "Naming", but damn,
sometimes it's hard to find a good name.

Best regards,
Jean-Marie