Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: A modest proposal -- We need a patch penguin | From | "Georg Nikodym" <> | Date | 30 Jan 2002 14:38:21 -0500 |
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On Wed, 2002-01-30 at 13:23, Linus Torvalds wrote:
[really interesting and insightful comments about revision graphs]
The thing that's missing here is that 'g' (or 1.7) doesn't just refer to the change that is 'g'. It's actually a label that implies a point in time as well as all the change that came before it. Stated differently, it is a set.
Using your graph:
a -> b -> c -> f
-> d
-> e
and the way that people currently think (and thus speak) of these things, saying that you're using a version 'e' kernel is ambiguous because it may or may not have 'c' or 'd'. This ambiguity also complicates the task of reproducing a tree at some known state later.
You, as the center of the known universe may not need to concern yourself with such trifles, but speaking as one of those fabled commercial customers, the ability to say unambiguously say what's been changed (read: fixed) is really important.
All that said, I like your idea about revision graph compression. My concerns might simply be mitigated by being able to insert "release" points (simply a tag that implies/includes all the preceding changesets).
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