From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCE] Git wiki Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 11:31:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: References: <20060505005659.9092.qmail@science.horizon.com> <20060505181540.GB27689@pasky.or.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: linux@horizon.com, git@vger.kernel.org X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri May 05 20:31:37 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Fc55D-0003C7-SL for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 20:31:21 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751205AbWEESbR (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 May 2006 14:31:17 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751207AbWEESbR (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 May 2006 14:31:17 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:19606 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751205AbWEESbQ (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 May 2006 14:31:16 -0400 Received: from shell0.pdx.osdl.net (fw.osdl.org [65.172.181.6]) by smtp.osdl.org (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k45IV7tH011818 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Fri, 5 May 2006 11:31:08 -0700 Received: from localhost (shell0.pdx.osdl.net [10.9.0.31]) by shell0.pdx.osdl.net (8.13.1/8.11.6) with ESMTP id k45IV7YX010277; Fri, 5 May 2006 11:31:07 -0700 To: Petr Baudis In-Reply-To: <20060505181540.GB27689@pasky.or.cz> X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0 required=5 tests= X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63-osdl_revision__1.74__ X-MIMEDefang-Filter: osdl$Revision: 1.134 $ X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.36 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Fri, 5 May 2006, Petr Baudis wrote: > > The automatic vs. explicit movement tracking is a lot more > controversial. Explicit movement tracking is pretty easy to provide for > file-level movements, it's just that the user says "I _did_ move file > A to file B" (I never got the Linus' argument that the user has no idea > - he just _performed_ the move, also explicitly, by calling *mv). THE USER DID NO SUCH THING. Moving data around happens with a whole lot more than "mv". It happens with patches (somebody _else_ may have done an "mv", without using git at all), and it happens with editors (moving data around until most of it exists in another file). So doing "*mv" is just a special case. And supporting special cases is _wrong_. If you start depending on data that isn't actually dependable, that's WRONG. There's another reason why encoding movement information in the commit is totally broken, namely the fact that a lot of the actions DO NOT WALK THE COMMIT CHAIN! Try doing git diff v1.3.0.. and think about what that actually _means_. Think about the fact that it doesn't actually walk the commit chain at all: it diffs the trees between v1.3.0 and the current one. What if the rename happened in a commit in the middle? The "track contents, not intentions" approach avoids both these things. The end result is _reliable_, not a "random guess". Adding file movement note to commits is simply WRONG. Why does this come up every three months or so? I was right the first time. You'd think that as time passes, people would just notice more and more how right I was and am, instead of forgetting and bringing this idiotic idea up over and over and over again. Linus