Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 10/11] contrib: remove "git-new-workdir"

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:21:08 -0700

Gabriel Scherer <[email-masked]> writes:

> I have a naive question. 'workdir' is a script that has been around
> for a long while, and apparently causes no maintenance burden
> whatsoever.

Not free of maintenance burden, unfortunately.

The "git worktree" was added with a clear intention that we do not
want to keep the hacky "workdir" script with known limitation and
sharp edges to break your history and replacing it with something
more sensible.  Once it has become in serviceable shape, there is no
reason to spend engineering effort to see if "workdir" is still
working every time the implementation of the repository on the
filesystem changes, assess how much work is involved to keep it
working if a change would break it, and judge if it is worth to
update "workdir" to keep it working or add yet another known
limitation to the list of "this hack does not work with X, Y, ...".

That has happened recently when we added the reftable support.

In short, keeping it is distracting of us, *and* of dubious value
especially becauseit is not as good as its more modern replacement.

> It was removed based on the impression that nobody was
> using it

Again, not really.  The true reason is more like "Nobody *should* be
using it", mixed with "There is a designed replacement these days.
They should learn to use it instead of that old hack".