From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: VCS comparison table Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:10:59 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: References: <9e4733910610140807p633f5660q49dd2d2111c9f5fe@mail.gmail.com> <45357411.20500@utoronto.ca> <200610180246.18758.jnareb@gmail.com> <45357CC3.4040507@utoronto.ca> <4536EC93.9050305@utoronto.ca> <87lkncev90.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <453792A8.1010700@utoronto.ca> <878xjc2qeb.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <453803E6.2060309@utoronto.ca> <87ods727pn.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <45382120.9060702@utoronto.ca> <87irie1wvv.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <453A7D7E.8060105@utoronto.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: Aaron Bentley , Carl Worth , Jakub Narebski , Andreas Ericsson , bazaar-ng@lists.canonical.com, git@vger.kernel.org X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sat Oct 21 23:11:30 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 1GbO7p-0002HG-Bc for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Sat, 21 Oct 2006 23:11:25 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1161065AbWJUVLV (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:11:21 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1161038AbWJUVLV (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:11:21 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:30172 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1161065AbWJUVLU (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:11:20 -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 k9LLB1aX009895 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:11:01 -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 k9LLAxNW001427; Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:11:00 -0700 To: Sean In-Reply-To: X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.48 required=5 tests=AWL X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63-osdl_revision__1.95__ X-MIMEDefang-Filter: osdl$Revision: 1.155 $ X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.36 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Sat, 21 Oct 2006, Sean wrote: > > Since the utility provided by revno's seems so minimal even in the > case where they do work, Git simply doesn't bother with them. And > "our" experience is that Git really does work well without them. Yes. This really is what it boils down to. The _only_ time you actually use revision numbers (as opposed to branch-names or tag-names) is when you want a _stable_ number. It's that simple. You never really need a revision number otherwise. In other situations, you do things like git log --since=2.days.ago gitk v2.6.18.. git diff --stat --summary ORIG_HEAD.. or whatever. It's clearly not "stable", but it's also clearly not a revision number from a UI perspective. When you want a revision number is _exactly_ when you're moving things between branches, or reporting a bug to somebody else, or similar. And that's also _exactly_ when you want the number to be stable and meaningful (ie the other end should be able to rely on the number). And if you need refer to a central repository to do that, it's clearly not distributed. Not needing such a central reference point is what the word "distributed" _means_ in computer science for chrissake! Linus