On Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:58:55 +0200, Ron W <ronw.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 4:30 PM, Scott Robison <sc...@casaderobison.com>
wrote:
Some thoughts:
More seriously, the Wikipedia article on forking is probably worth a
read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)
I would claim that github is the odd man out here, having appropriated a
term that historically meant something undesirable and changing it into
an
intended desirable part of the software development process.
Certainly, Github's use of "fork" is different that saying "Devuan" is a
fork of "Debian".
As to whether a fork is undesirable depends on point of view. I am
willfully ignorant regarding the Debian people's opinions of Devuan. I
will, however, admit that I think the Inkscape fork of Sodapodi benefited
me,
Accidental head or accidental branch don't seem to apply if for no other
reason a fork *can* be deliberate. That's not the norm but --allow-fork
does exist as an option for those cases when fossil can detect a fork
will
happen but to allow it anyway. I suspect most people don't type
--allow-fork accidentally (when they type it at all). :)
In my experience, a "fork" results when I or one of my teammates forgets
to
start a new branch. So, from our perspective, "accidental" is very
applicable. Even with "fossil forks", such an undistinguished "branch"
would be easy to loose track of. I would not want to create a "fork".
So, if we *must* have a unique term, I'd vote for twig as I've never
heard
it used in a dvcs context and can't find such a reference via Google.
Mind
you, if we started using twig there is nothing to stop github (or
others)
from coming along and appropriating the terminology, so we could wind up
right back in this position seven years down the road.
I'm not saying _must_. I only want to point out that it could be a
non-trivial obstacle to adoption for Fossil for some people.
personally, I don't see a problem with calling such random branches a fork
within the fossil context. but I agree that the use/meaning is a bit
idiosyncratic in view of the existence of 'project forks' and
(unfortunately) github calling the project clone maintained on the server
side a fork (I believe that's what it is, right?).
semantically, it might be stated that "fork" somewhat breaks the tree
paradigm (trunk, branch, leave...) or at least introduces a topological
property where otherwise "components" are used. so the suggestion to
change to "twig" might really be a good thing. but if changing the
terminology really is a seriously considered issue, than I cannot abstain
from proposing "shoot" instead (which would open the theoretical
possibility to indicate it as `SHOOT!' in the CLI timeline display --
which most of the time, would be correct, too ;-)
but seriously: maybe all is good and well already ...
--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
_______________________________________________
fossil-users mailing list
fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org
http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
