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Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

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Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#121

Post by 0xff00ffee »

HALtheWise wrote: post #116

One major fundamental issue with git that nobody has brought up is that its data model is close-to-incompatible with some of the current legal and moral requirements around data privacy today. For example, as far as I can tell, GDPR allows any European citizen who has ever committed to the Linux kernel to request that their name be permanently expunged from their contributions, and everyone with a git clone of the ke…

Like when I accidentally check in credentials.

/insert Michael Cain playing Homer sound: Buh-oh./

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#122

Post by eesmith »

tenken wrote: post #109
734129837261 wrote: post #107

I wish there was a version control system that didn't need user input beyond a "push". Only branches and pull requests, nothing more. No commit messages, you have one master branch and however many sub-branches you need. Whatever code is in your branch is what it is. And then there's a layer of magic on top of it all, maybe a UI or command line tool or both, just to be able to easily rewind time. Either per file, per…

Do you work on a team? Or in a job were you need to have an audit trail for your work? Commit messaged and many other features of Git like branching and tags are indespensible for sharing and collaborating on code.

Flip your questions around. Might someone who isn't on a team, and doesn't need an audit trail, want something simpler?

Versioned files systems, including Apple's Time Machine and Dropbox's version history, have no extra UI to save versions. A small, short-lived project with at most a few collaborators (eg, working on a small scientific paper) might find those more useful than git or other VCS.

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#124

Post by Polylactic_acid »

hamandcheese wrote: post #118
james_s_tayler wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the number of git repos on Earth that would encounter problems of that nature would be a vanishingly microscopic minority. Sure, it's a problem for those companies but it's not a problem for anyone else.

Vanishingly small in number, but quite significant in terms of the number of developers working in them.

All of the organizations that have outgrown git will have such incredibly specific requirements meaning nothing but a custom built tool will work for them.

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#125

Post by pbh101 »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #70
romwell wrote: post #58

When people talk about killer features missing in Git, there is more beyond the UX and mono/poly repo. One thing is code review. There is no code review in Git. What I expect in 2020 is that I should be able to specify reviewers for the commit (which I pick out of a list of people who can approve it). These people should be able to leave comments on the commit. I should be able to both respond to comments and modify…

I think it doesn't exist because there is no demand for that to be part of the codes history. Nothing you've described sounds very useful after a month or so.

All this talk of Git-sympathetic code review tools and nobody has mentioned Gerrit, which seems at least somewhat close to what is being described. Each patchset of each review is its own Git ref and is often referenced in the final commit.

Separately, I know many including myself who would love for code review comments to more seamlessly be integrated into the code browsing experience.

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#126

Post by nemo1618 »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #114
dilap wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cherry picking is a shitshow! i would love to be able to use a patch-based VC.

You can still generate and apply patches with Git.

I believe GP is referring to Darcs/Pijul-style patches, rather than Git "patches," which are really just diffs. See https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Understanding_Darcs/Patch_theo...

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#127

Post by GauntletWizard »

HALtheWise wrote: post #116

One major fundamental issue with git that nobody has brought up is that its data model is close-to-incompatible with some of the current legal and moral requirements around data privacy today. For example, as far as I can tell, GDPR allows any European citizen who has ever committed to the Linux kernel to request that their name be permanently expunged from their contributions, and everyone with a git clone of the ke…

The legal requirements in the EU are at odds with the moral requirement. Changing or erasing history in Git is an anti-feature. Checked in secrets should be assumed to be compromised and changed immediately. Removing contributions should be treated as any other form of censorship.

Those who forget (or rebase away) history are doomed to repeat it.

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#128

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

deanCommie wrote: post #92
aylons wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this should be part of version control, simply because is too tied to the environment and development practices that may not be shared by the whole set of current and future developers of any given project. The version control should keep the code history, not the paperwork history. What I think you're looking for could, however, use git as a platform for that. That's what GitHub, GitLab and the likes d…

I think the distinction you're drawing between code history and paperwork history is more arbitrary than you give it credit. If all we cared about was code history, a super pure "version control" system would have one trunk, no branches, and a sequentially increasing version number with no commit messages or author information. But if you can annotate an entire commit with a descriptive message, why not annotate a sp…

Perhaps commits should support key:value metadata? (I was about to say "tags", but that means something different here) That would let you support "reviewer:person@foo.bar" or whatever you want, without baking workflow assumptions into the VCS.

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#129

Post by choeger »

harry8 wrote: post #111

Taking the question literally, obviously not. If git became a problem due to some unforseen licensing issue or whatever mercurial does the job just fine right now and has for years. As a heads up if you're stuck on cvs, svn or other stupid vcs due to "old-codgers" in your office, mercurial has a shallower learing curve and easier ui to get the same job done which may make it easier to switch. Either git or mercurial,…

> day 2

Unfortunately, you have to settle on some workflow for that. And this settling will take some experience and discussion. So "day 2" sounds very overambitious to me.

Re: Is Git Irreplaceable? (2019)

#130

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

duskwuff wrote: post #104
codazoda wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually LIKED having a central repository, which many of us still seem to prefer (i.e. GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket). I switched to git mainly because my colleagues were all using it. I found it difficult to use, at first, because of my expectation of a central repo. Many years in, however, I see extreme value in having all your history locally. Specifically, never having to worry about a server crashing or your "hos…

Having history available locally also means you can perform interesting operations on history -- like "git blame" -- without making the server do all the heavy lifting.

Yeah, other than locking I would argue that a DVCS is better at even the things a non-distributed VCS is good at.
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