Re: [PATCH 3/6] push: change `simple` to accommodate triangular workflows

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

"Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:

> From: "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox.com>
> Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 8:23 PM
>> Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>>> Double negation confused my parser.  'push' and 'pull' should be
>>>> kept symmetrical in central workflows?
>>>
>>> They're not the same thing.  It is very much intentional and
>>> intended:
>>> the safety net is not to "ensure that the push and pull are
>>> symmetrical" (i.e. among other things, error out if
>>> branch.$branch.merge is unset), but rather "ensure that the push and
>>> pull are never asymmetrical".
>>
>> Hmmmm....
>>
>>    not to "ensure that the push and pull are symmetrical"
>>    rather "ensure that the push and pull are never asymmetrical".
>>
>> They still talk the same thing to me.  What am I missing?
>>
>> Am I being clueless, or is there something else going on?
>
> I think it is a case of the user having explicitly set push=Africa and
> pull=Europe which can't be a setting for simple symmetry.

Yeah but then that is not a discussion about central workflow.

I can understand "In a central workflow push and pull should be
symmetrical."  I can also, with a bit of double-negation brain
twisting, understand "In a central workflow, push and pull should
not be asymmetrical."

But when I suggest to avoid double-negation, I was told that these
two statements mean different things, and the original should not be
rewritten to avoid double-negation, which is where my brain stopped
and asked for help.