Re: [PATCH v5 2/8] upload-pack: implement ref-in-want

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

Brandon Williams <bmwill@google.com> writes:

>> > +	* The server SHOULD NOT send any refs which were not requested
>> > +	  using 'want-ref' lines and a client MUST ignore refs which
>> > +	  weren't requested.
>> 
>> Just being curious, but the above feels the other way around.  Why
>> are we being more lenient to writers of broken server than writers
>> of broken clients?  The number of installations they need to take
>> back and replace is certainly lower for the former, which means
>> that, if exchanges of unsoliclited refs are unwanted, clients should
>> notice and barf (or warn) if the server misbehaves, and the server
>> should be forbidden from sending unsolicited refs, no?
>
> Ok so should I change the server part to "MUST NOT" and the client part
> to "SHOULD"?  And I can add code to die when we see refs that weren't
> requested, but i feel like if we add an ability to request a pattern in
> the future this will completely change, which is why I currently have a
> client just ignoring anything else.

I did not have enough information to give an answer to "should I do
X?"; that is why I asked these questions prefixed with "Just being
curious".  I do not quite get a good feeling that I now know enough
to answer, still, but let me try.

If we anticipate backward incompatible changes between this early
WIP stage and the final completed protocol, it would be GOOD to make
sure that an early WIP clients/servers fail when seeing the other
side gives them something they do not understand, no?

So...