Re: Git, where zombie branches shamble again

[Keith Marshall]

On 01/11/2021 14:01, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2021-10-24T18:53:52-0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 11:58:55AM +1100, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
>>> Since I am now accused four times over of rewriting history, and
>>> moreover of violating an "absolute taboo", I must insist upon the
>>> presentation of particulars.
>>
>> Hi, I'm the BitKeeper guy, nobody knows who I am but BitKeeper was
>> the first distributed source management system, hg, git, etc are
>> copies, I'm the guy that figured this model out.
> 
> Fear not!  I've known your name and (some of) your work for many years.
> 
>> If you did not rewrite history, which means you changed things so
>> that a pull won't work or will create a massive merge mess, then
>> you are fine.
> 
> As far as _I_ can tell, neither of these has taken place.

Seriously?  You absolutely _did_ rewrite history ... not just once, but
twice!  You deleted an _entire branch_ of published development history,
then after my subsequent push had reinstated it, you deleted it once
again!  If that isn't rewriting history, then I'd like to know what you
would call it.

Now, I'm sure you made this mistake in ignorance, rather than with any
malicious intent, but it was a history rewriting mistake nonetheless.
Two things which you should never do, after anything has been pushed to
a public repository: you should not rebase any of it; neither should you
delete any of it.

>> The taboo is once you have some history, don't change that because
>> all of the clones of your public repository depend on that history.
> 
> Agreed, and this is consistent with everything I've learned about
> distributed revision control.

Yet you ignored what you suggest you have learned; you _did_ change some
of that (published) history, by deleting an entire branch of it.

>> I'd be happy to get on the phone with you if I could help.  While
>> I may be an SCM guy, I've been a groff fan for decades.  Love to
>> help.
> 
> I appreciate the offer.  I let this issue lie for a few days so Keith
> could lay out the particulars of my cardinal sin, but none have proven
> forthcoming.

Frankly, I thought you might have been smart enough to work it out for
yourself.

> Without an accurate description of damage done (if any) to the
> repository, there is no way anyone can repair it.  And if there is none,
> then charges of rewriting history are overblown, unwarranted, and
> unfriendly.

Claims that you have not done what you so clearly have, are frankly
disingenuous.  The damage done may not be critical, insofar as we may be
able to live without that deleted branch, but a possibility remains,
that it could find its own way back at some future date; indeed, I still
have a local clone, in which that history remains ... 54 commits, per
attached deleted-history.log, (produced by 'hg outgoing' from that ...
now outdated ... clone).

deleted-history.log
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