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Oh Shit, Git?

(ohshitgit.com)
464 points Anon84 | 3 comments | 16 Jan 25 18:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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behnamoh ◴[16 Jan 25 18:42 UTC] No.42729165[source]▶
Git is one of those technologies that I never got to wrap my head around of, because in so many ways it doesn't follow intuition and unless you have been using it for a long time, for literally every action you would probably have to Google or use the man page of the command.
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nomel ◴[16 Jan 25 18:56 UTC] No.42729343[source]▶
I was trying to delete a file from history yesterday.

The built in way (filter-branch) pops up a warning, with a long delay, saying you should hit Control+C and go download a third party python script called filter-repo...

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PaulDavisThe1st ◴[16 Jan 25 18:59 UTC] No.42729380[source]▶
Possibly consider that "deleting a file from history" is rather far outside the norm or recommended practice for git (even though it is, of course, entirely possible)
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nomel ◴[16 Jan 25 19:06 UTC] No.42729476[source]▶
> even though it is, of course, entirely possible

I take the more realistic perspective: until git makes it impossible to commit something that shouldn't have been, like a secret, then deleting a file from history is a fundamental requirement of git.

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tom_ ◴[16 Jan 25 19:16 UTC] No.42729598{3}[source]▶
The designers of git clearly disagreed, as you can guess from its design, so it's not surprising it might feel like a bit of an uphill struggle (and will probably remain so). There are other tools available.
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1. nomel ◴[21 Jan 25 22:42 UTC] No.42786045{4}[source]▶
> The designers of git clearly disagreed

filter-branch has been around since, at least, 1.8. It exists to rewrite history, this specific use case (as the official documentation details) included. An open source project admitting that a solution is better than their own does not mean the developers "disagree" with it, especially when the functionality has already been part of the developers tool for over a decade.

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2. tom_ ◴[22 Jan 25 02:43 UTC] No.42788293[source]▶
But if they didn't disagree, they'd have designed a system that made removing things from remote history easy, rather than a complete pain in the ass that's basically impossible to make work usefully anyway. The whole thing runs largely based on commit hashes, and when you change history, all the commit hashes change, and... good luck. This behaviour has some useful properties but it's quite often not what you want. And that isn't how this sort of system inevitably has to work! - but git does anyway, and always has done.

(By comparison, if you want to delete something from the Perforce history, there is a command for that. You can remove individual revisions, leaving gaps in the history, or the whole thing.)

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3. nomel ◴[22 Jan 25 20:45 UTC] No.42797309[source]▶
> But if they didn't disagree, they'd have designed a system that made removing things from remote history easy

That's not how real world software development works, especially open source (built on volunteer time, usually for personal use, then shared). See X window system, javascript, etc. Git's foundation was built in 5 days as a side project [1][2]. There wasn't some committee, design reviews, etc with perfect foresight. A foundation was built, and built upon, that worked great for 97% of the use case, with the remaining 3%, including those pesky "real world use" quirks, not fitting so great. This is common in software development [3]. I don't think you can reasonably extract an "agree" or "disagree" developer opinion from the implementation of the feature, but since the filter-branch feature was added 18 years ago [4], two years from gits birth, time for those pesky "real world" scenarios to be revealed, I think "agree" is probably the more likely. "Probably should have made that a first class feature" isn't some impossible phrase...I know I've said it many times.

I would be interested in the history of it though. I think a git documentary would be friggin amazing.

[1] Linus mail: https://marc.info/?l=git&m=117254154130732#:~:text=So%20git%...

[2] Interview with Linus: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/10-years-of-git-an...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_abstraction

[4] filter-branch patch: https://lore.kernel.org/git/Pine.LNX.4.64.0706030129110.4046...