Subject: Re: [PATCH] notes: accept any ref for merge

From: Jeff King <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2014 05:26:58 -0500

On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 10:04:57AM -0800, Kyle J. McKay wrote:

> > By "stealth enabler" I mean the removal of refs/notes/ restriction
> > that was originally done as a safety measure to avoid mistakes of
> > storing notes outside.  The refs/remote-notes/ future direction
> > declares that it is no longer a mistake to store notes outside
> > refs/notes/, but that does not necessarily have to mean that
> > anywhere under refs/ is fine.  It may make more sense to be explicit
> > with the code touched here to allow traditional refs/notes/ and the
> > new hierarchy only.  That way, we will still keep the "avoid
> > mistakes" safety and enable the new layout at the same time.
> 
> This is the part where I want to lobby for inclusion of this change.   
> I do not believe it is consistent with existing Git practice to  
> enforce restrictions like this (you can only display/edit/etc. notes  
> under refs/notes/*).

Yeah, this is the compelling part to me. There is literally no way to
utilize the notes codes for any ref outside of refs/notes currently. We
don't know if refs/remote-notes is the future, or refs/remotes/origin/notes,
or something else. But we can't even experiment with it in a meaningful way
because the plumbing layer is so restrictive.

The notes feature has stagnated. Not many people use it because it requires
so much magic to set up and share notes. I think it makes sense to remove a
safety feature that is making it harder to experiment with. If the worst
case is that people start actually _using_ notes and we get proliferation of
places that people are sticking them in the refs hierarchy, that is vastly
preferable IMHO to the current state, in which few people use them and there
is little support for sharing them at all.

The original patch discussion sort of fizzled, and your response here
largely slipped through the cracks. I am not sure everyone even
remembers the exact patch under discussion. Maybe a better way to
re-kickstart the discussion is to repost the patch along with a synopsis
of the previous discussion and your arguments about moving it forward.

-Peff