Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc: add a explanation of Git's data model

From: "Kristoffer Haugsbakk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2025 11:59:39 +0200

On Mon, Oct 6, 2025, at 21:36, Julia Evans wrote:
>[snip]
>>> +blobs::
>>> +    A blob is how Git represents a file. A blob object contains the
>>> +    file's contents.
>>> ++
>>> +Storing a new blob for every new version of a file can get big, so
>>> +`git gc` periodically compresses objects for efficiency in
>>> `.git/objects/pack`.
>>
>> This gets into mentioning implementation files(?) like you mentioned in
>> the commit message.
>
> That's true! The reason I think this is important to mention is that I find
> that people often "reject" information that they find implausible, even
> if it comes from a credible source. ("that can't be true! I must be
> not understanding correctly. Oh well, I'll just ignore that!")
>
> I sometimes hear from users that "commits can't be snapshots", because
> it would take up too much disk space to store every version of
> every commit. So I find that sometimes explaining a little bit about the
> implementation can make the information more memorable.
>
> Certainly I'm not able to remember details that don't make sense
> with my mental model of how computers work and I don't expect other
> people to either, so I think it's important to give an explanation that
> handles the biggest "objections".

That’s very intresting. Yes, maybe people need to be told/taught to a
level which might be considered “just implementation details” or else
both neither their curiosity won’t be satisfied *nor* will their own
sense of error-correction for the seemingly implausible.

>[snip]
>> I appreciate that this is the first version and you might have plans
>> after this one. But I wonder if this doc could use a fair number of
>> `gitlink` to branch out to all the other parts. Like git-reflog(1),
>> gitglossary(7).
>
> That's reasonable. Do you often use the "See also" section of
> man pages? I've never looked at them so I'm always curious about
> how people are actually using them in practice.

I don’t really use See Also when looking things up. But I notice all the
mentions of other docs in running text.

>[snip]