On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Konstantin Khomoutov <
flatw...@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> That sort of "we don't need it, we don't need it" mantra is a typical
> case of the famous "Blub paradox".
> I mean, if we have two DVCS tools one of which makes you able to
> rewrite history and another one which doesn't, the first one is more
> powerful _in this particular respect_. It's as simple as that.
> By supporting a feature, the tool does not force you to employ that
> feature in your workflow.
>
First, note that there is a difference between "rewriting history", which
is what git supports, and "deleting unwanted items", which is the request
that started this.
Second, that a feature doesn't affect you if you "just don't use it" is a
fallacy. Sure, I think history should be sacrosanct, so I won't use rebase
even if it's available. That doesn't stop others on the project (who don't
agree with me) from using it . The only way to make sure that doesn't happen
is to not have the feature available *at all*.
Finally, having a feature that powerful available tends to cause the API to
*not* include safe versions of common tasks that that dangerous feature
handles. To see what I mean, take a look at mercurial, which shares the
fossil philosophy, but provides a (disabled by default) rebase command. It
has a number of commands (*not* disabled by default) for tasks that are
handled in git using rebase. Unlike rebase, those commands are safe, in that
mistakes with them can't wreck your repo the way a mistake with rebase can.
It may not make a difference if you never make mistakes, but in that case
you don't need rebase.
Bottom line: while "more features" may imply "more powerful", it doesn't
imply "better".
<mike
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