Re: hard dependency on Git? (was bug#65866: [PATCH 0/8] Add built-in builder for Git checkouts)

[Csepp <raingloom@riseup.net>]

Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@debian.org> writes:

> [[PGP Signed Part:Undecided]]
> On 2023-09-11, Simon Tournier wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 at 16:23, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>>> Note that the patch series adds a hard dependency on Git.
>>> This is because the existing ‘git-fetch’ code depends on Git,
>>> which is itself motivated by the fact that Git supports
>>> shallow clones and libgit2/Guile-Git doesn’t.
> ...
>> Personally, I do not have a strong opinion about the Big Plan™.  I note
>> that the introduction of Git as a hard dependency is a slippery slope
>> considering the current state of libgit2.  Here, it starts with “git
>> clone”, then “git gc” (unsupported by libgit2) is also in the pipes
>> (#65720 [1]).
>
> What about making git an optional dependency, and only calling out to
> "git gc" if git is available in PATH? Maybe possible also with shallow
> clones?
>
> Then you have the best/worst of both worlds! Speaking to the worst, you
> have at least two disparate codepaths for a seemingly similar operation,
> and that might be annoying...
>
> live well,
>   vagrant
>
> [[End of PGP Signed Part]]

For what it's worth, I wrote a small (incomplete) tool for some commit
analysis that used specific --format arguments that were easy to parse.
It's not especially difficult.