Subject: Re: Does content provenance matter?

From: Thomas Rast <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 10:23:38 +0200

Kelly Dean <[email-masked]> writes:

> [copying B/X over to C/X is not recorded as such], on the theory that
> just content, not provenance, is what matters.

> [merging branches *is* recorded], on the theory that not only content,
> but also provenance, matters.

> The basic question is, if provenance doesn't matter, then why does a
> git commit record its parent(s)? Why not omit this information, and
> figure it out at search time (by looking at all commits with older
> timestamps), the same as you're supposed to figure out renames at
> search time and figure out the movement of lines within/among files at
> search time (by looking at all files in the parent commit(s))?

What's the difference between the following series of commits?

  Foo
  Bar
  Revert Bar

and

  Foo

You claim that they're the same, because the tree state after each is
the same.  But I learned that Bar was broken, and recorded it for all to
see.

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch