Subject: Re: Git User's Survey 2008 partial summary, part 5 - other SCM

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:32:56 +0200

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
> On 9/12/08, Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >
> >  15) Do you miss features in git that you know from other SCMs?
> >     If yes, what features are these (and from which SCM)?
> >     (Open ended text - Essay)
> >
> >  Total respondents       1046 (some/many of them wrote 'no')
> >  skipped this question   1249
> >
> >  This is just a very quick summary, based on a first few pages of
> >  responses, Full analysis is I think best left for after closing the
> >  survey, because I think this would be a lot of work...
> >
> >  So here is preliminary list, or rather beginning of one:
> >   * sparse/partial checkout and clone (e.g. Perforce)
> 
> Have not read the survey result, but do you recall what is the most
> used term for sparse/partial checkout? What SCMs do sparse/partial
> checkout? I think it could be usable as it is now in my
> will-be-sent-again series, but I don't really know how people want it
> to from that.

Well, I do not remember, and I think I haven't got original data now,
only the above summary.  Besides, I haven't even began analysing data
from question 34. about ideas for features, and I guess we would see
'partial checkou' ide there too.

>>From short discussion on #git channel, Abhijit Menon-Sen (crab) said
that they are 'restricted views' in Perforce, but this terminology is
completly alien to Git.  Bjorn Steinbrink (doener_) mentioned that
Subversion 1.5 acquired something they call 'sparse directories':

  http://blogs.open.collab.net/svn/2007/06/sparse-director.html

(Sidenote: perhaps it would be worth to follow SVN UI for sparse 
checkout here?).  In short, people on #git agreed that 'partial 
checkout' is a good name; I think that 'sparse checkout' better renders 
idea that one can checkout _set_ of files and directories, and it is 
not only limited to single subdirectory ('subtree checkout' / 
'subdirectory checkout') or a single file.

Comparison table on Better SCM Initiative

  http://better-scm.berlios.de/comparison/comparison.html

names it "Ability to Work only on One Directory of the Repository" and 
uses '"work_on_dir"' id.

HTH
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland