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For me the amazing thing about writing VCS is that a subtle bug or change could destroy someone's history and future commits. For example, in some old Mercurial

by yeukhon 12y ago

For me the amazing thing about writing VCS is that a subtle bug or change could destroy someone's history and future commits. For example, in some old Mercurial release, hg mv had a bug (something affects history integrity) and the bug is fixed in recent release (the default version install on Ubuntu 12.04 should see that bug). Maybe I lack of the domain knowledge, but writing VCS must be a very difficult task if you care about preserving history.

ams6110 12y ago
Nothing unique about VCS. A subtle bug in a word processor has the potential to destroy someone's manuscript. A subtle bug in a payment processing system has the potential to expose a million credit card numbers. This is the nature of software.
sjwright 12y ago
No, it won't, because you keep your workstation backed up. You do keep a backup, right?
- Walkman 12y ago
  If you backup a git repository, that would be the same than making backup from a backup. How far would you go? :D Git repo itself is a backup!
  - sjwright 12y ago
    That's assuming you routinely push all your changes and branches -- without exception -- to a server. Of course you can always pull from elsewhere to grab a copy of the repo, but that's no excuse for not backing up your local environment.
  - _ikke_ 12y ago
    No, your git repository is not a backup. It's a record of the history of your project, but it's not sufficient as a backup. You could see pushing as making a backup, but even that wouldn't backup the exact state of your repository (private branches, configuration, reflog, rerere, etc..). If an object gets corrupt, it's almost impossible to fix it, unless you have a copy of that object somewhere. That's why it's still important to make backups of your repository.
    - Walkman 12y ago
      I disagree. Even if you are a couple of commits behind, and you totally screwed, you should be able to recreate it from top of your head. maybe a couple of local git hooks, but still, if you pushed, the most important work should be available somewhere else and you can pull it.

by yeukhon 12y ago

ams6110 12y ago

Nothing unique about VCS. A subtle bug in a word processor has the potential to destroy someone's manuscript. A subtle bug in a payment processing system has the potential to expose a million credit card numbers. This is the nature of software.

sjwright 12y ago

No, it won't, because you keep your workstation backed up. You do keep a backup, right?

Walkman 12y ago
If you backup a git repository, that would be the same than making backup from a backup. How far would you go? :D Git repo itself is a backup!
- sjwright 12y ago
  That's assuming you routinely push all your changes and branches -- without exception -- to a server. Of course you can always pull from elsewhere to grab a copy of the repo, but that's no excuse for not backing up your local environment.
- _ikke_ 12y ago
  No, your git repository is not a backup. It's a record of the history of your project, but it's not sufficient as a backup. You could see pushing as making a backup, but even that wouldn't backup the exact state of your repository (private branches, configuration, reflog, rerere, etc..). If an object gets corrupt, it's almost impossible to fix it, unless you have a copy of that object somewhere. That's why it's still important to make backups of your repository.
  - Walkman 12y ago
    I disagree. Even if you are a couple of commits behind, and you totally screwed, you should be able to recreate it from top of your head. maybe a couple of local git hooks, but still, if you pushed, the most important work should be available somewhere else and you can pull it.