From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Daniel Barkalow Subject: Re: GIT vs Other: Need argument Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:45:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: References: <20070417104520.GB4946@moonlight.home> <8b65902a0704170841q64fe0828mdefe78963394a616@mail.gmail.com> <200704171818.28256.andyparkins@gmail.com> <20070417173007.GV2229@spearce.org> <462521C7.2050103@softax.com.pl> <8b65902a0704181308i41c878ebi88c03a929769ba39@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: Guilhem Bonnefille , Johannes Schindelin , Marcin Kasperski , git@vger.kernel.org To: Linus Torvalds X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Apr 18 23:45:47 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HeHyD-0003Oj-GT for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:45:45 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753898AbXDRVpj (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:45:39 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753983AbXDRVpj (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:45:39 -0400 Received: from iabervon.org ([66.92.72.58]:4689 "EHLO iabervon.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753979AbXDRVpi (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:45:38 -0400 Received: (qmail 30974 invoked by uid 1000); 18 Apr 2007 21:45:37 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 18 Apr 2007 21:45:37 -0000 In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Guilhem Bonnefille wrote: > > > > Yes, but I think that, as Git has ton more capabilities, user has to > > understand more things than with CVS. > > I do agree. > > The whole "branch" thing is something you can ignore in CVS, but it's > simply very hard to ignore in git, because even *if* you just follow > another repository, git kind of forces you to be aware of the difference > between "local branch" and "remote tracking branch". > > I think that's fairly fundamental to being distributed, though. I actually disagree here. CVS users are obviously familiar with "how far have I updated from the server". With CVS the "local branch" and "remote tracking branch" are qualitatively different, and with git they're qualitatively the same, but the user doesn't have to care. Particularly with the new refs layout, it's pretty easy to ignore, as long as the upstream repository isn't using branches for anything this particular user cares about. You can just tell people, "Before you merge upstream changes, you have to commit, so that if the merge gets screwed up you don't lose your work." And they say, "Oh. That's useful." And they don't need to know the technical reasons this is both possible and necessary. (Of course, branches are really helpful once you have a need for them, but there's no reason to learn about them before that point.) -Daniel *This .sig left intentionally blank*