Implementing versioning in the file format conflicts with git, because each document is essentially its own little source control system. This can be surprising

Implementing versioning in the file format conflicts with git, because each document is essentially its own little source control system. This can be surprising to users who copy the file and don’t realize that they’ve effectively copied the entire repo. Copying a file will sometimes include drafts they didn’t want to share. It can mean you lose control over when things are committed, and so you don’t end up with a useful history. If you then check the file into git, you are storing one source control system into another one, and older versions appear in two different histories. To be git friendly, you don’t want to save anything other than the current version, and then let git do its thing. Possibly the answer is “don’t use git, we have it covered,” but then the app developer should realize that they are implementing something like a source control system. How do people share drafts, review them, and merge changes? How do you publish a release that only includes the version you wanted to release? And it does seem relevant that the developer of Sqlite actually did implement their own source control system [1]. Maybe they could have warned people about what they’re getting themselves into if they go down this route? I wonder how terrible it would be to either use a git repo as your file format, or to build in git compatibility into your app somehow so you could push and pull? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_(software)