From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: VC mode and git Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:30:13 +0000 Message-ID: <20150327123013.GA3141@acm.fritz.box> References: <83y4mmpb1n.fsf@gnu.org> <20150324173536.GA30608@thyrsus.com> <83twxap92g.fsf@gnu.org> <20150324181936.GA31705@thyrsus.com> <20150325164718.GB24458@thyrsus.com> <20150326112356.GA10502@thyrsus.com> <87sicrj669.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1427459486 30640 80.91.229.3 (27 Mar 2015 12:31:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:31:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, eliz@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Mar 27 13:31:16 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YbTPg-000683-Ss for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 13:31:01 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50003 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YbTPg-0002Bg-2F for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:31:00 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38639) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YbTPG-0001li-FU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:30:35 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YbTPD-0003BY-28 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:30:34 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:17659 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YbTPC-00039f-GE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:30:30 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 67832 invoked by uid 3782); 27 Mar 2015 12:30:28 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (pD951849D.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [217.81.132.157]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 13:30:27 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 3979 invoked by uid 1000); 27 Mar 2015 12:30:13 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87sicrj669.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x X-Received-From: 193.149.48.1 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:184375 Archived-At: Hello, Stephen. On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 03:38:54PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: > Richard Stallman writes: > > Bzr has more or less the same flexibility as Git, > Only from your self-declared non-expert perspective. Bzr has *one* > advantage in flexibility over git, and that is bound branches. > Otherwise, git has a huge advantage over bzr in flexibility at every > level. Correction: git is hugely more flexible than bzr. It's a value judgement as to whether this flexibility is a "huge advantage". Flexibility means complexity. Complexity, without a good reason, is bad. git's complexity is IMAO very bad in this sense. That this complexity is not needed in a useful VCS is proved by the counterexample of Mercurial. I thoroughly resent the hour after hour after hour I've been forced to spend reading git man pages, desperately searching for the obscure option (or obscure command name) needed to get me out of some problem or other, or find out how to do some simple thing. I strongly suspect Richard would agree with me on this point. Just for comparison, the git man pages weigh in at 1,681,250 bytes, the entire Emacs manual (24.3, info format) is 2,315,718 bytes. A VCS should not take the same order of magnitude of text and effort to describe and learn as Emacs does. A VCS which can dump somebody in the sort of problems Richard now has, when he has merely been performing the simplest of operations, is an excessively "flexible" system. > > and yet it has a simple mode of operation which doesn't create this > > problem. > It's not a problem for anyone who doesn't have a decade and a half of > CVS usage under his belt. Really. And as Eric points out, most of us > who do have that experience have also jumped on the DVCS bandwagon > with a shout of joy. As an on-jumper, I can't recollect any shouts of joy on my part. DVCSs have advantages and disadvantages, and I think the former outweigh the latter - except in the case of git. Personally, I would now be more productive in Emacs if we had just stayed with CVS (though I do recognise that part of that advantage came from other people's drudge work). > I'm not saying that you should jump for joy, too, just that you are in > a fairly small and rapidly decreasing minority. One wonders at this point just how many people have been excluded from active participation in free software projects due to being unable or unwilling to learn git. These people don't get to vote, and don't get counted. [ .... ] > Regards, -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).