Subject: Re: git and bzr

From: Nicholas Allen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 20:11:35 +0100

Jakub Narebski wrote:
> Nicholas Allen wrote:
>
>   
>>> The reason this is a good example is simply the fact that it should 
>>> totally silence anybody who still thinks that tracking file identities is 
>>> a good thing. It explains well why tracking file identities is just 
>>> _stupid_.
>>>       
>> I'm unfamiliar with git so I could be totally wrong here!
>>
>> I know that bzr supports file renames/moves very effectively and I 
>>     
>
> This means: _usually_ works, doesn't it? Emphasisis on "usually"?
>
>   
>> understood that git doesn't support this to the same extent (correct me 
>> if I am wrong as I have not used git at all!).
>>     
>
> Git supports renames/moves in different way. Instead of recording renames
> (which has trouble on it's own, for example rename via applying patch)
> in the repository it _detect_ renames when needed.
>   
This can't be fail safe though. I would prefer to also have the option 
to be able to *explicitly* tell the RCS that a file was renamed and not 
have it try to detect from the content  which is bound to have corner 
cases that fail. When I know I renamed a file why can't I explicitly 
tell the RCS and it records the change with the *file identifier*. If I 
change the content then the change is not recorded with the file 
identifier but with the line/content identifier.