Subject: Re: git-svn: Branching clarifications

From: Eric Wong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2007 00:49:44 -0700

David Kastrup <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Eric Wong <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> > git-svn sets "master" to the most recently committed-to branch
> > in SVN the first time it fetches.  "git-log master" will tell
> > you (look at the git-svn-id: lines).
> 
> Sigh.  Another "surprise the user by an arbitrary looking choice that
> might possibly correspond to what he wants done because it something
> obscure in the commit history suggests so" design decision.
> 
> I don't want my master set according to something that a coworker (or
> even myself) happened to commit last to.
> 
> Please.  git-svn is told how to find the trunk on its command line.
> Nothing makes sense (short of an _explicit_ wish otherwise for which
> it might make sense to create a command line option) than to map
> master to the trunk.

Keep in mind that command-line arguments for trunk, branches and tags
are _all_ optional to git-svn.

If only trunk or nothing is specified, the current behavior will always
be correct.

There's also a case if only branches and/or tags are specified, with no
trunk given.  That would need to be handled, somehow...

I've also tracked several (both OSS and closed) projects that have a
policy of doing all work on branches with a trunk that's almost never
up-to-date.

Tracking the last-committed branch was the easiest to code, and we even
tell the user which branch they're on.  I guess I could add a message
telling them all the other refs they can "git reset --hard" to if they
don't like their current one.

> As a design rule: don't second-guess the user, _ever_, and
> particularly not on decisions with large consequences.  A tool should
> not have a mind of its own but do what it is told.  And if it can't
> figure out what it is told, by simple, user-understandable criteria,
> barf.  And of course have a way to _direct_ it when it can't figure it
> out on its own, or if the simple and obvious default would not do the
> right thing.

git-svn used to never check anything out and leave HEAD dangling.  I was
happy with that, but I got a lot of user complaints from that, too.

-- 
Eric Wong