Re: GIT vs Other: Need argument

[Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Guilhem Bonnefille wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, but I think that, as Git has ton more capabilities, user has to
> > understand more things than with CVS.
> 
> I do agree.
> 
> The whole "branch" thing is something you can ignore in CVS, but it's 
> simply very hard to ignore in git, because even *if* you just follow 
> another repository, git kind of forces you to be aware of the difference 
> between "local branch" and "remote tracking branch".
> 
> I think that's fairly fundamental to being distributed, though. 

I actually disagree here. CVS users are obviously familiar with "how far 
have I updated from the server". With CVS the "local branch" and "remote 
tracking branch" are qualitatively different, and with git they're 
qualitatively the same, but the user doesn't have to care. Particularly 
with the new refs layout, it's pretty easy to ignore, as long as the 
upstream repository isn't using branches for anything this particular user 
cares about.

You can just tell people, "Before you merge upstream changes, you have to 
commit, so that if the merge gets screwed up you don't lose your work." 
And they say, "Oh. That's useful." And they don't need to know the 
technical reasons this is both possible and necessary.

(Of course, branches are really helpful once you have a need for them, but 
there's no reason to learn about them before that point.)

	-Daniel
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