From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Michael Witten Subject: Re: [doc] User Manual Suggestion Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:16:50 -0500 Message-ID: References: <200904242230.13239.johan@herland.net> <20090424213848.GA14493@coredump.intra.peff.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Jeff King , Johan Herland , git@vger.kernel.org, David Abrahams , "J. Bruce Fields" To: Daniel Barkalow X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sat Apr 25 21:18:30 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LxnOL-0004Pn-Rq for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:18:26 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753177AbZDYTQx (ORCPT ); Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:16:53 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753268AbZDYTQw (ORCPT ); Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:16:52 -0400 Received: from qw-out-2122.google.com ([74.125.92.24]:49097 "EHLO qw-out-2122.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752956AbZDYTQv (ORCPT ); Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:16:51 -0400 Received: by qw-out-2122.google.com with SMTP id 5so1406859qwd.37 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:16:50 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=/TLuQnMUB6ggnRjSf0s+D6wnwJV39f9gRIhnXRKyw20=; b=LA3r31MJtmoNQyxqMAkOIFSGXKajQYF3evhhSAH9HFpH4TYvwpMeewqPVr+UZOuk/V JdaYw33Is0C+wk/Vw9YEprVJrZwrAz9fgFOJnniHx0UmZ9XcOCitiFfRryOUmkSahE/n k3H6zsq7JnD5IdYsQ+kT8R1xuIYscmb77X6GE= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=kPB15rPxUz52UUpepB80N6TOq1hvL5lPwd6HabQlJQHyikKbtOXZR6aU7QnI4MMsWK tf53EXDTq0eA8AYw9hb9i75oscb9EhZwFo97bn2jlWVOFtS8OsoSUvNVv0CH6WpH86N7 4yzWXtQHe6QAAmZRO9U/O6tTVYzZr3AwJDdU0= Received: by 10.224.67.1 with SMTP id p1mr4236974qai.263.1240687010837; Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:16:50 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 13:55, Daniel Barkalow wrote: > On Fri, 24 Apr 2009, Michael Witten wrote: > >> > And the term is already in use for this particular case, >> > and it doesn't mean anything else at all (since, of course, the crypto >> > thing is "SHA-1", not "sha1"), and it's short (which is important for >> > making it easy to look at usage help). >> >> What happens when SHA-1 is shown to be broken or there is a better >> alternative? Then we'll see "sha1 for historical reasons"... bleh! > > Why do you think SHA-1 has anything to do with it? Well, it's named sha1. > Git's sha1s could just > as easily be 160 bits of a SHA-256 hash and there wouldn't be any > user-visible difference. The term doesn't imply any particular significant > connection to a particular algorithm. Then give it a generic name like 'hash'. > It could be like "pencil lead", which has never been made of lead, > but is called that for no particularly important reason. Hence the perennial: "Hey! Did you know that pencil lead isn't lead at all?" to which someone might respond: "Why do you think lead has anything to do with it?" Look familiar?