Nico Williams wrote:
On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Stephan Beal<sgb...@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 12:02 AM, Nico Williams<n...@cryptonector.com>
wrote:
Mercurial too had "heavy-duty" branches only, then they added
"bookmarks" that are very similar to git branches. Since a "bookmark"
is just a symbolic name for a commit... this is just a new table at
best, with two columns.
Bookmarks. That's a nice idea, actually. Added to my TODO list.
It's interesting that I just sold you on the git branching model, by
using the Mercurial analog.
I don't know what that says. To me any heavy-duty branching model is
difficult to explain, but clearly bookmarks are easy to explain, or at
least easier to explain when you start from a heavy-duty branching
model. Regardless of what it means, it's good! :)
I think Git is a great, powerful, and flexible tool that actually has a
much simpler design than it initially appears. But to get to a place
where you actually understand that design (and, thus, understand Git),
takes about 99x more effort than 99% of the software I've ever used.
Once you get to that point, though, it's wonderful! ;)
One serious problem I have with Git's branching model, though, is that
the branch names don't really name branches.
If I want to go back and dig through the history of an old "feature-x"
branch, I get the commit that the feature-x ref is currently pointing to
along with every other ancestor of that commit -- including every
ancestor of the commit that feature-x branched out of and the ancestry
of every other commit that's been merged into the feature-x branch.
Well, okay, but that's not really what reasonable human beings
conceptualize as a branch.
This is, of course, assuming that the "feature-x" ref still exists. In
Git, it is common practice for people to delete a ref (even from the
remote repository) after the branch has been merged. To me, this really
does amount to deleting history.
Fossil branches are actual branches, and I find this very helpful. As an
example, I fairly often find myself wanting to look back at a specific
commit that I remember. I obviously don't have the artifact ID
memorized. I only vaguely remember when it was created. While the
commit message was clear and descriptive, I don't remember it, and
searching for keywords that I think appear in it returns nothing. If I
could go back in time, I would give it a tag. But heck, even Git doesn't
include a time machine yet.
However, I do remember the branch name (and even if I don't, I can
easily find it in the list of closed branches). Firing up "fossil ui"
and going to /timeline?r=feature-x narrows it down to a handful of commits.
Anyway, there are some things that I wouldn't mind if Fossil stole from
Git, but the branching model is not one of them.
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