Re: git branch --edit-description a custom file

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 07:53:18PM +0000, Phillip Wood wrote:

> > So how would you envision the workflow for this? Would it be something
> > like,
> > 
> > 	$ git checkout feature-1
> > 
> > 	$ git branch --edit-description=ref # instead of =config
> 
> Personally I'd prefer a config setting that meant --edit-description stored
> the description in a ref instead of the current config key (or perhaps as
> well as so format-patch can just get the latest branch description from the
> config key)

Yes, a config option makes much more sense to me. Both the writers and
readers will need to know where to find the data.

> > * Since we're planning on sharing these descriptions with the outside
> >    world, how would the ref layout look like? If we're not using the
> >    refs/remotes namespace will it make fetching and merging notes harder?
> >    I know that collaborating with notes is a pain so how do we avoid
> >    making the same mistake?
> 
> I'd love to see a consensus around putting remote versions of refs/foo under
> refs/remote/<remote-name>/foo. To share notes I add a refspec that fetches
> to refs/remote/<remote-name>/notes. It is a pain that 'git pull' wont merge
> them for me though.

The trouble with that sort of scheme is that it conflicts with the
current namespace scheme, which puts the remote "notes" branch in
"refs/remotes/<remote-name>/notes". And it's not just a problem if you
want to have a branch called "notes". Think about what "git fetch
--prune" would do.

I do think the world would be a better place if we mapped (all or a
subset of) the remote "refs/" into "refs/remotes/<remote-name>/". I.e.,
really creating "refs/remotes/origin/heads" and even
"refs/remotes/origin/tags". But we'd need to re-adjust the way that some
ref lookups work (e.g., looking in refs/remotes/*/tags for tags).

There was some work by Johan Herland around the v1.8 time-frame, but it
stalled:

  https://public-inbox.org/git/AANLkTi=yFwOAQMHhvLsB1_xmYOE9HHP2YB4H4TQzwwc8@mail.gmail.com/

And here's some later discussion:

  https://public-inbox.org/git/CA+P7+xpj+8DZ=K0pna299Mu3nsQ4+JV_JUK=WFzzAFnJN+Bkbg@mail.gmail.com/

So in short, I agree very much with the direction you're discussing, but
I think there's some fundamental work that needs done first.

-Peff