Re: Rename handling

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> 
> And some will argue that explicit renames are susceptible to user error 
> misidentifying the rename too, certainly in the 1% figure of all renames 
> if not more.

It's much worse than that. I will *guarantee* that renames are missed when 
they come in as traditional patches, for example. That's a 100% error rate 
right there, not some "1%" one.

And even if people never make mistakes, and people *only* use the native 
SCM "rename" functions, I guarantee that the downsides of thinking that 
files have identities is still much much bigger than the upsides. We've 
already shown that the git "blame" functionality is strictly more powerful 
than anything based on renames.

So learn to love the bomb. Rename tracking is *wrong*. 

		Linus