Talk:Git/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Git. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Archive 5

Linus's quote

Could anyone add about where Linus's quote comes from? It would help the fact check. -- Taku 23:08, 23 April 2005 (UTC)

Active development

Because git is software in active development, I've marked the article current. A wikipedia article isn't likely to keep up with changes in the git process/algorithm, so I feel that marking the article current best alerts the reader to the fact that it may be out of date. Majromax 00:24, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The {{current}} tag is for current events only, I removed it. Instead of tagging the article permanently, please use phrases such as "As of May 2005". Using "What links here", these can then be updated regularly.--Eloquence * 16:23, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Changed reference to git-pasky scripts

I changed the link and the name of the git-pasky scripts as they are now called cogito and the scripts themselves have changed quite a bit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.52.56.51 (talk • contribs) 14:17, 29 April 2005

difference between git and traditional SCM

Could someone expound on the difference between git and a traditional SCM? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.132.18.1 (talk • contribs) 02:24, 18 May 2005

It's the file system underneath to facilitate a SCM. Cogito is a revision control system, Git is the revision control filesystem underneath (more or less) - I've edited the intro accordingly - David Gerard 10:57, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That is two possible questions, with different answers:

The earliest git wasn't an SCM at all. It was some "storage guts" that one could implement an SCM front end on top of. However, the "core git" tools have grown to be a usable SCM by themselves.
The core git tools have some differences compared to other SCMs. The differences are explained the the main article.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.184.166.57 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 22 February 2006

You bloody gits

Wheres the slang term? Don't you nerds speak English? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Artw (talk • contribs) 22:59, 5 July 2005

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The slang term is at wiktionary:git. --cesarb 6 July 2005 13:49 (UTC)

But that says Wikipedia isn't a guide to technical jargon either... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.217.250.193 (talk • contribs) 15:52, 6 July 2005

I'm kind of insulted that nerd-culture is given a higher precedence than legitimate British culture here. This should maybe (just maybe) be a disambiguation page, but it certainly shouldn't be the Linux term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Artw (talk • contribs) 16:56, 6 July 2005

Right, I agree with disambiguation. This should have been recommended on the Talk page first instead of blank reverting. I am both a linux user and english. How about Git (slang) and Git (version control system) ? And btw. "nerd" culture is globally more widespread than "legitimate" "British" culture. Its probably English not British anyway. - FrancisTyers 6 July 2005 16:31 (UTC)

Eh? I moved it, I didn't delete it. I even went to the bother of changing the links (something the first reverter broke). At the time I thought it was an obscure term and no one would particularly notice, and so I dealt with it. Your right in that since some people seem to care a lot about this (due to status anxiety, as far as I can tell) I should use some kind of collaborative method, but calling me a vandal for attempting to fix something is a bit off - if this encyclopedia wasn't overrun with people obsessed with nerdery it would have been a total non issue. --Artw 6 July 2005 16:56 (UTC)

When I got here, the Git (linux) page had been blanked and re-directed to Git with no explanation. - FrancisTyers 6 July 2005 16:59 (UTC)

Another half-assed attempt at revision. Screwing that up was what really vandalised the item. --Artw 6 July 2005 17:05 (UTC)

Also, normally before you revert three times, its best to bring it up on the Talk page. - FrancisTyers 6 July 2005 17:00 (UTC)

As soon as I figure out where I put my password I'll be putting in a vote for deletion - and then the Linux article can be recreated wherever anyone see's fit. this page should be the original term, or disambig, or nothing. I urge everyone else to do the same. --Artw 6 July 2005 17:07 (UTC)

This has now been done. --Artw 6 July 2005 20:36 (UTC)

I notice that the link to the slang term has been removed from the GIT disambig page as well, which seems like you guys having your cake and eating it. Looking back through the history there seems to have been repeated efforts to reduce any reference to it at all. --Artw 6 July 2005 17:23 (UTC)

Protection

If there is any more vandalism, I will protect the page for a few hours. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk July 6, 2005 15:38 (UTC)

Figures; I knew I would have to do this. Page has been protected. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk July 6, 2005 15:59 (UTC)

I hardly think someone with LINUX in their user name has the objectivity to deal with this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Artw (talk • contribs) 16:15, 6 July 2005

That's nice. Too bad I already dealt with it. :-) Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk July 6, 2005 16:17 (UTC)

Sorry Linuxbeak, I have to agree with the anon here. Your handling of the matter has been inappropriate. Of all the uses of Git, the source control system is the newest and least common. The disambiguation pages belongs at Git and this article should be moved to Git (scs) or the like... In the future I hope you will make a greater effort to avoid using administrative powers in a dispute that you have been a party to, and that you use more polite language in dealing with people who disagree with you. Gmaxwell 6 July 2005 17:44 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with Gmaxwell and the anon. I don't think it qualifies as vandalism so the usage of page protection is inappropriate. -- Joolz 6 July 2005 17:50 (UTC)

I would like you to direct your attention to the history of the page before you (you as in people in general, not directed towards anyone, I swear ;-) ) say that I was being an abusive op. While my actions might have been a bit hasty, I disagree with anyone who says I did something wrong out of malice. The anon didn't use the talk page before making these edits, and I wasn't taking action from a Linux user's point of view; I was taking it from an admin's. What I saw here was an edit war, and I took action. When more than one anonymous IP address was editing in this fashion, then that's when I felt it was time to protect the page. I will unprotect the page, and it's not "below" me to admit that I make mistakes.

Also, this comment is directed towards Gmaxwell, concerning my usage of words: the statement "I hardly think someone with LINUX in their user name has the objectivity to deal with this." is quite inflamatory. I could have said "fuck you" or something equally offensive (not that I would, please understand that), but I instead tried to be casual with my language. I do not run away from the fact that I was wrong on certain levels. I, however, think that the anonymous editor could have used a less disruptive route to change the article. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk July 6, 2005 18:55 (UTC)

One other thing: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk July 6, 2005 19:00 (UTC)

Or a repository of technical gubbish. --Artw 6 July 2005 19:02 (UTC)

An entry on Git (the file system) belongs on Wikipedia; a dictionary entry on the word git belongs in Wiktionary, not here -- linuxbeak is 100% correct on that count. →Raul654 July 6, 2005 19:05 (UTC)

Theres nothing that wrong with having an entry for Git (the file system), however it shouldn't be the root entry for Git. --Artw 6 July 2005 19:09 (UTC)

Just because you could have used worse words, doesn't make your decision right. Yes, the claim that you were probably biased was harsh... but I think it was deserved, it didn't look like a completely unreasonable statement to me and I know you and am a Linux user myself. It's no great sin, but you could do better. Even if his words were unreasonable we should still strive to foster cooperation in the face of hostility. --Gmaxwell 6 July 2005 20:34 (UTC)

FWIW Linuxbreak is right to have put a protect on it to prevent changes while we take this to talk. And I was in the wrong for making multiple edits and pointing the matter out to others who then went on to do the same. My original point stands though. --Artw 6 July 2005 19:09 (UTC)

The reason why I objected to protection was because the vandalism template was used, I'm glad that you now agree that in fact it was an edit war.

I also agree that Wikipedia is no place for a dictionary definition, which the article on the slang would be. I think the problem lies in the fact that no mention of Git's other use as a slang word is on the page, the link at the top, after all, points to GIT, which one wouldn't expect to find a page for the word Git linked to. If we mentioned usage as a slang word, linking to the wiktionary, would that sort this issue out? (damn edit conflicts!)-- Joolz 6 July 2005 19:11 (UTC)

It would help a little but IMHO it should be a disambig page, the GIT page should be merged with it and a seperate Git (verison control) page should be created. The slang term should take precendence above all else in the disambig isnce it came first and the name of the Linux doo-dah is a derivative of it. --Artw 6 July 2005 19:15 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I would like to make another point: do not do copy-and-paste moves. In fact, my first revert (to Git) was because it looked like the page had been completely blanked and replaced by a dicdef, and my second revert (to Git (linux)) was to revert the copy-and-paste move. Please use the move function to do page moves.

As to whether the disambiguation should be at Git, I do not think it's needed, since the most common encyclopedic meaning of Git is Linus' program. The dictionary definition might be more common, but it does not count because this is not wiktionary. --cesarb 6 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)

You're streching "Common" more than a little there. The slang term needs to be there because it's what people are most likely looking for. Also theres no reason why it shouldn't grow to something larger than just a dicdef - something that can;t happen if it's a tiny note tucked away underneath a large peice on some obscure computer term. --Artw 6 July 2005 19:23 (UTC)

This is a fairly clear example of wikipedia geek systematic bias. I agree that the git (slang) article belongs in wiktinary, which is where it is. I readded the git (slang) bullet to the GIT disambig page, which CesarB had remove because including a wiktionary link is normal for us. The use of GIT related to Linux is brand new and uncommon. The other uses of GIT, including the slang, are each the more common use. Moving Git to Git (SCS) and redirecting Git to the disambig would almost certantly be the correct thing to do. Gmaxwell 6 July 2005 20:21 (UTC)

A disambig page is used to distinguish between multiple encyclopedic entries. Since we all seem to agree that the british term doesn't belong here, that leaves only one. The proper course of action is to put the linux term here (which, barring any other definition, is the only that that fits) and put up a nice, shiny wiktioary sister-project template linking to the british defintion. →Raul654 July 6, 2005 21:29 (UTC)

Theres actually several meanings, hidden away on the GIT page. Every so often someone goes in there and deletes one or two of them because it's supposedly only for acronyms. Just like every so often someone deletes the passage about where Linus got the word from the page in order to tighten it up. Nothing wrong with that, except it leaves an important part of my linguistic heritage out in the cold. All of this can be resolved with a disambig page, and as far as i can tell the only thing in the way of that is Linux-enthusiast ego. --Artw 6 July 2005 22:09 (UTC)

I don't care much either way (keeping things as is or moving Git to Git (version control system) and GIT to Git), as long as it's done the proper way (using the move function), instead of a copy-and-paste. Which means you would need an admin's help to remove some redirects on the way... --cesarb 6 July 2005 22:14 (UTC)

Clarification - anonymous posts

24.18.247.210 and 66.10.35.42 are me. I'll attempt to use my username from now on, especially when dealing with anything that might be a bit controversial. --Artw 6 July 2005 18:20 (UTC)

Yet another git

Gamers internet tunnel is also called GIT. A disambiguation page might be good because the program is rather well-known. See http://www.morpheussoftware.net/git/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.231.111.66 (talk • contribs) 17:54, 3 December 2005

References

Whoever keeps adding the useless and out of date "Notes" section with random links with no cohesive point please stop. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.138.66 (talk • contribs) 15:45, 3 May 2006

User:Kesla started migrating references from [url] which gives direct numbered links to <ref>{{cite web...}</ref> which gives links to <references/> block. User:Jnareb finished conversion.

Anonymous user from IP 69.156.138.66 keep removing <references/> block:

This is where you might want to put some real references not random links to useless and outdated email threads which bear little information relevant to understanding Git.

I disagree. These are references to historical information; the Git (software) article is full of Git history. Some of them should be probably replaced by links to web pages, not git mailing list archives.

If the large References block, with email subject sometimes unrelated to the topic referenced, is decided to be removed, then we need to go back to old [url] references, otherwise Wikipedia readers will loose information. --Jakub Narebski 19:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Well that's the problem with letting Wiki newbies edit pages! Won't get any more trouble from me.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.138.66 (talk • contribs) 22:30, 3 May 2006

As the person who first added the links (in [url] form; I didn't know about the other), I might mention the reason I did so: to provide links to the primary source documentation from which I derived the statements I was making about git history. How do I now that event X happened on date D? Because the person who did it posted to the git mailing list saying so. E.g. How do I know that git can apply patches to the Linux kernel tree at 6.7 per second? Because Matt Mackall benchmarked it and posted the results. It was a few hours of work finding the best source for various interesting events, but wikipedia asks for references, and the idea behind the links was to provide them. If anyone thinks any of the footnotes are not directly applicable to the text which references them, please mention it, but please be specific about which one. The e-mail subject lines are sometimes less than obvious, but history is often messy. The bodies of the articles are on-topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2006 192.35.100.1 (talk • contribs) 20:07, 10 May

Thanks for the mailing list references, I found them excellent explanations of the original ideas in git (as far as they go, of course). Many authoritative historical references are hard to read, but in contrast these are very clear. Coffee2theorems 21:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed revert of "Linus" -> "Torvalds" change

The change can be found at [1]. In Linux (and git) development, Linus Torvalds is generally referred to as "Linus", so the revised paragrah sounds a trifle odd. Still, one likes to think carefully about undoing something that someone else thought was an improvement, so I'll leave this up for a while to collect comments. Does wikipedia have a policy that's relevant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.35.100.1 (talk • contribs) 03:24, 10 May 2006

Using the surname is far less chummy. The name people use on mailing lists quite often doesn't match how they're formally referred to. Chris Cunningham 12:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Missing link

The link for gct "a GUI enabled commit tool for Git and Mercurial." points to a 404 error et http://www.cyd.liu.se/~freku045/gct/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.182.250 (talk • contribs) 14:25, 27 November 2006

Removed. qwe 16:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Trivia: When did git self-host?

I found this interesting thread on the git mailing list: Trivia: When did git self-host?. Maybe someone wants to incorporate that information into the article. --88.134.67.237 14:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. 71.41.210.146 05:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Useful references

This is a list of good mailing list postings that could be useful for the article at some future date. (Please delete when they're merged into the article.) [2] a very informative example of how "git bisect" works with non-linear history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.41.210.146 (talk • contribs) 05:10, 5 March 2007

Serious cleanup needed

Urgh. This is practically unreadable just now. I'll try to tackle some of the more egregious bits straight away, probably by deleting them. Chris Cunningham 11:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Done for now. The internal gubbins section needs reordered, and it looks like there's massive ref duplication, but can't do everything at once. Chris Cunningham 13:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

External links

I nuked the expansive mailing list portal section, along with things which had been dead for ~18 months and some tutorial links. There were some links which may contribute useful info to the article; for now I've commented them out. I'll move them to talk on the next pass. Please try to find them homes in the article itself if they contain notable info. Chris Cunningham 13:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

git's development process explained

Junio C Hamano, A note from the maintainer, 2007-02-16

I just found this interesting mailing list post, sent out every few months by git's maintainer. It describes how to retrieve git, how to contribute, and also how development takes place. I don't know if it's worth mentioning in the article, but I think it's useful at least on this page for people like me how always wondered what these topic branches (master, maint, next, pu) were all about. --88.134.67.237 14:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

What should be done with the "Using Git" section?

I notice that this change deleted the example, leaving the section confusingly incomplete. Should the section be deleted entirely, or what should it contain and how big should it be? I'm willing to do the writing, but could use guidance on the goals. (Please purge this section from the discussion page if/when the issue is settled.) 71.41.210.146 06:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

GNU Interactive Tools

The GIT FAQ says about the name that it is a

“random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command”

The latter part is not true. For years GIT has been GNU Interactive Tools, a sort of a file manager:

--Blanu 06:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

GNU is an acronym for GNU Is Not UNIX, and thus GNU Interactive Tools expands to GNU Is Not Unix Interactive Tools. Therefore, the statement is quite correct. Git is NOT actually used by any common UNIX command. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.217.43.131 (talk) 01:09, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

indeed, and on Debian at least, the package name "git" is taken by GNU IT, which is why the package is called "git-core" in many distributions. -- Jon Dowland 13:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In Debian (starting from Lenny) the GNU Interactive Tools package has been renamed to "gnuit". Package "git" is nowadays only a dummy transitional package which depends on "gnuit". (2008-11-12) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.220.180.181 (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)