From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Theodore Tso Subject: Re: remote#branch Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:01:04 -0400 Message-ID: <20071030030104.GK21133@thunk.org> References: <20071016021933.GH12156@machine.or.cz> <20071016210904.GI26127@efreet.light.src> <20071027204757.GA3058@efreet.light.src> <20071029174000.GA4449@efreet.light.src> <20071029214925.GH21133@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Jan Hudec , Johannes Schindelin , Petr Baudis , Paolo Ciarrocchi , git@vger.kernel.org To: Linus Torvalds X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Tue Oct 30 04:02:14 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1ImhMp-0007rg-Mx for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 04:02:12 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752442AbXJ3DBx (ORCPT ); Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:01:53 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751905AbXJ3DBx (ORCPT ); Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:01:53 -0400 Received: from THUNK.ORG ([69.25.196.29]:57975 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751889AbXJ3DBw (ORCPT ); Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:01:52 -0400 Received: from root (helo=closure.thunk.org) by thunker.thunk.org with local-esmtps (tls_cipher TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA:32) (Exim 4.50 #1 (Debian)) id 1ImhWT-0007qs-Qs; Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:12:10 -0400 Received: from tytso by closure.thunk.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1ImhLk-0002Q9-PU; Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:01:04 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 03:57:41PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > Sure, but "URL" in human-speak has nothing to do with an RFC. > > I dislike language-lawyerese. Why the hell do people think that human > language should follow the RFC's? > > Git addresses look like URL's, and they act like URL's, but dammit, git > isn't a web browser, and it's not interested in acting like one. The quoting rules aren't specific to a web browser; the whole point of URL's is that they are uniform so that programs know how to handle them without needing information specific to the URL type. Hence the quoting rules apply to all applications using URL's, whether it's CUPS using a url such as: ipp://example.com/printer/tiger/bob or LDAP using a url such as: ldap://ldap.example.com/dc=example,dc=com?postalAddress. It's just git which is different here. Having a uniform set of processing rules are *useful* for applications and libraries that are parsing URL's, not just for language-lawyer wanking. Not that git addresses that are layered on top of http is all that well supported any more, but in that case we really are using an http-style URL --- but yet git doesn't do URL quoting, because, well, it doesn't. Yet in that case it's very clear the http address is really a URL, and it's arguably a defect that git doesn't handle an http address the way all other applications handle http URL's. At the very least, if we aren't going to change git, we should hang a big fat sign in the documentation saying that although git location names that begin git:// look like URL's, and smell like URL's, they aren't treated the same way that all other applications treat URL's, and the user shouldn't be surprised by this. Furthermore, choosing pathnames so that git:// and gitweb http:// addresses don't require URL-style quoting, will probably save the user a fair amount of pain and confusion because git refuses to treat git addresses as URL's. It would probably also be a good idea to expurgate URL's from the documentations, because, well, they aren't URL's. Git doesn't treat them like URL's, and you've said you aren't interested in changing git to treat them like URL's, and finally git:// isn't a registered URL scheme name with the IANA registration authority. So let's not call them URL's, since they're clearly not. - Ted