Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] clone: add disassociate alias to dissociate option

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2015 10:32:22 -0800

Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:

> I wonder if there is some better word that could become a synonym for
> "--reference --dissociate". Maybe "--borrow", but that does not
> necessarily carry the implication that the relationship ends as soon as
> the clone is done.

You are retracing the exact line of the thinking that led me to a
cop-out that is a separate "--dissociate".

The original idea was to give "--borrow /local/repository/path", but
that would have made it unclear what the differences between that
new option and existing "--reference" were.  Both borrow the objects
in order to reduce the network cost, and the difference is that one
keeps borrowing while the other one limits the borrowing to strictly
the initial phase.  The two words, "borrow" and "reference", would
not convey that key distinction.  "Do the reference thing (which is
well understood from old days, even before v1.6.0) and then severe
the ties" was suboptimal but was easy to explain, and that is why I
call it a cop-out.

> What is really happening is that we are reusing
> objects in order to save bandwidth. Maybe "--reuse-from" would work?
>
> I dunno. I am not extremely happy with any of the suggestions I made,...

I dunno, either.

We are all on the same page.  We know the cop-out is suboptimal, we
understand why the cop-out is better than "--borrow", and we cannot
come up with a better name that contrasts with the existing
"--reference" to make it clear how the new thing is different.