Subject: Re: git and bzr

From: Nicholas Allen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:37:19 +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"?

Having not used git I can't really say whether git is better than bzr or
not in this regard. I know in the kind of development I do the case
where a file with the same name has been added independantly in 2
different branches is a pretty rare one. Usually, when it has happened
the files should have been 2 separate files with different names anyway
- so bzr would have no problem with this.

However, renaming a file is pretty common and I would rather be explicit
about it and have file name changes easily visible/searchable in my log.

Just out of curiosity: How does git handle the case where one file is
renamed differently in 2 branches and then the branches are repeatably
merged? I know that bzr handles this very well and in various tests I
did there were absolutely no repeated conflicts. Would git behave as
well in this scenario?