Re: Emacs-diffs Digest, Vol 175, Issue 8

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Philippe Vaucher <philippe.vaucher@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2017 17:37:11 +0200
> Cc: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>, Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> 
>  Is this renaming really necessary? If it isn't, I'd prefer not to
>  rename, as doing so makes digging into history harder.
> 
> Hum, `git log` has `--follow` which works quite well and `git blame` tracks content changes anyway (not file
> names).
> The only "gotcha" when renaming a file is to avoid changing its contents as well, otherwise it makes detection
> more difficult.

Yes, some Git commands can follow renaming, but others cannot, at
least not easily.  For example, "git log -L" has problems when it
crosses the renaming.  I had more trouble with other commands, which I
cannot at the moment recall; at the very least one needs to use
unusual syntax or non-default options which are hard to remember, so
that gets in the way when you have the least time.

So renaming is okay if we really have to do that, but we shouldn't do
it just because we can.