Re: VC mode and git

[chad <yandros@gmail.com>]

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> On 01 Apr 2015, at 15:05, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> 
>>> It seems the real answer is "everybody" commits often, so it must
>>> be good thing to do.  I've never found that sort of reasoning
>>> persuasive.

Frequent commits allow people the freedom to move up, down, and
around the various versions of a dynamic codebase thats also being
worked on by many other people. The various tools for navigating
the DAG help quite a lot, but such things are generally too obscure
for new git users to grok, so they sit waiting for a future when
Im ready that sometimes never arrives. The practice also meshes
nicely with (both responding to and encouraging) a style of programming
that emphasizes and rewards frequent experiments and (especially
popular lately) test-driven exploration in actual code.

If you arent already used to working this way, then there is a hill
to climb before it becomes comfortable. This naturally implies a
tradeoff - some people will hate climbing the hill more, while
others will be excited to try something new with the hope of improving
their workflow, programming ability, etc. (As an aside: This last
group is, I claim, very important to Emacs, because its a major
source of new Emacs users - they grow up on simple editors and IDEs,
and then hear that theres rich rewards to be gained if only they
can manage to climb the cliffs of Emacs mastery.)

I dont want to put words into anyones mouth, but I think that there
are people on this list who are trying to help others *understand*
git that want to convey something like this idea:

	There are solid advantages to this part of git’s typical
	usage pattern that are considered features not bugs, and
	will not be changed (by git) because of these advantages.

Whether those features are advantageous to any one person is a
tradeoff. The discussion continues (IMHO) because *some* of the
people who have made a *personal* choice are making claims about
*general* choices, and those claims directly contradict the choices
of many reasonable, knowledgable people.  It certainly doesnt help
that so many of these claims are *statements* that take the form “I 
don’t see why anyone would ever want FOO.”

I hope that helps,
~Chad

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