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Comment by cxr | Hacker News Reader

Git branches are about as real as the most significant bit in an IEEE 754 double's significand.

> modern version control systems are a user interface to their underlying mathematics

Widespread (mis)understanding of Git is a direct result of programmers who don't understand library and information science refusing to accept that they're in the domain of library and information science but trying to slog through anyway without the prereq; repo operations comprise an algebra of publishing. It gets really perverse in interdisciplinary settings when technical folks start trying to explain Git to people in the humanities who are better equipped to grok its fundamentals than the average programmer.

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That's very snoby-sounding tbh.

Why would the average humanities person be better equipped to understand an algebra about source code management? What a weird take. It's not about managing a library of any kind, it's about a tree of changes. And it's not (only) about publishing either.

Is there a reason why between what I originally wrote and what you wrote here, you changed enough of the words that it no longer matches what I actually said?

> It's not about managing a library of any kind, it's about a tree of changes.

No, a Git repo is not "a tree of changes" (nor is Git a "hacky diffing tool").

Just because you frame Git to be a certain way, doesn't mean I agree with it.

Define Git for me then please. Obviously we're using very different tools. Git itself, for me, manages diffs (or rather refs of diffs) as a tree. Branches are pointers. That's it.

/e: and why on earth is it an algebra about publishing? As I said before, imho it's not about publishing, but about tracking. Publishing is just an aspect.

> Define Git for me

I'll pass.

> Git [...] manages diffs (or rather refs of diffs)

Wrong.

> why on earth is it an algebra about publishing?

It's not. I said operations on a repo comprise an algebra of publishing. As for why? Because that's what we're talking about: the stupid content tracker. This is not disputable.

> As I said before, imho it's [...] about tracking

You didn't say that. And you were less than humble about what you did say.

Thank you for showing me that any time spent on talking to you is wasted. You clearly demonstrate that you have no interest in a discussion.

Again, not true. But discussion with you? About this? Here? Bang on—I can't see any upsides.

> when technical folks start trying to explain Git to people in the humanities who are better equipped to grok its fundamentals

Maybe we need some librarians to explain to us what "updates remote refs using local refs, while sending objects necessary to complete the given refs" means :-)

Your argument for why librarians (sic) aren't equipped to understand and provide instruction on the theory of content tracking is a well-known example of subpar documentation written by a programmer?

That's an interesting POV. Are there papers or other research that have been published by professional librarians regarding git and similar repository systems in use by the software development community?

Sorry, I'm not steeped in that world (unlike some of the more presumptuous and clearly self-serving comments surrounding yours have evidently assumed), and I don't know of any; my background is a programmer with a formal education in CS. I wouldn't be surprised if the answer were, "There aren't any." cf Feynman:

In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public.

Can you expand? I'd like to see an example of the kind of disconnect you're thinking of. Or even better, a library-sciencey model of version control.

It's interesting how many mental models of git there are. For me it's a digraph (specifically a DAG, unless you've done something horribly creative). For other people it's a patch-management tool. Or a versioned database. It seems like almost nobody thinks it's a source code repo.

I would like to hear more.

Check out his other comments. He responded to every single person except the two who said they'd like to learn more about this.

This self aggrandization by humanities people never gets old.

Git is a DAG management system. It's fine if you don't understand what that means.

The world runs on science and commerce, get down your humanities high horse.

Oh boy. I'll take "Motivated Reasoning" for 50¢, Ken.

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