> I call it "lying", since the purpose seems to be to deceive the reader about what actually happened. This is exactly the kind of dishonest hyperbole daheart

> I call it "lying", since the purpose seems to be to deceive the reader about what actually happened. This is exactly the kind of dishonest hyperbole daheart mentioned. The purpose isn‘t to deceive the reader. Does the reader really need to see the "tmp" commit I made when switching from my desktop to my laptop? I do not think so, and squashing this commit is not intended to deceive anybody. Your comment on the other hand… In my view, what I am doing with rebase is creating project history, not changing it. The history becomes immutable and "the truth" once the feature branch is merged. > I think that a source code repository should be a true history of a project. You repeatedly claim this without justification. Seems like many people do not see the value in "WIP" and "tmp" commits and failed design decisions littering history. You do provide good reasons for why this isn‘t useful though: > So you can backspace and edit and change all you want to before typing "commit" So you agree correcting mistakes is useful, and not everything should be recorded. > It is useful to have a simplified overview of project history, to aid the reader's comprehension. > I concede that if you think of a source code repository as just a story or as documentation to help future readers, and not as a accurate history of the project, then rebase is not lying. In that case, rebase is just revising your narrative. Exactly. Consider "I ate a sandwich." vs "I though about eating a watermelone (typo), but when I opened the fridge, I changed my mind and decided to make a sandwich instead. During the process I dropped my knife on the floor and had to clean it. Then I ate a sandwich." The second one is a much more detailed and truthful account of what happened, yet it does not provide any value. The first, much shorter and easier to follow, history conveys exactly what I wanted to tell you: What I ate.