[delinquentme]

Is there something Im missing with pull requests? Or is it that even programmers like UIs?

1) Git log becomes useless.

2) You're merging code via a UI, without ANY granularity whatsoever.

3) Does it not just FEEL dirty doing this in a UI?

4) A little appeal to authority: http://www.wired.com/2012/05/torvalds_github/

5) and a bit more: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-56637...

6) Efficiency lost w regards to minor changes. Youd actually write a comment to have someone change something and then RE-issue the pull request? Sure you would, because youre middle management.

Pull requests seem to be a hacky way for management to get involved with something they understand at the loss of control in arguably the most complex phase of coding: INTEGRATION.

[cweagans]

You don't have to use the UI. If you're really anal about your git history, you can do the merge locally and squash everything into one commit. IMO, it's not worth the effort to do that, though. You probably don't actually care about the Git log - you care about the file history (i.e. git blame), which will usually point you to the right commit anyway, even if you have a bunch of extra merge commits in your log.

FWIW, you're not Linus. You don't get 17 million emails/day (exaggeration, I know). He has a very refined workflow based on many, many years of working with people all over the world on a gigantic project used by hundreds of millions of people.

Re point 6: You don't create another pull request. You just make another commit on that branch.

[giaour]

Github has a command line tool that lets you merge in pull requests by downloading and applying the PR's patch; that will keep your history clean. PRs offer a great UI for coffee reviews; just because you use them for that purpose doesn't mean you need to merge with the big green button.