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by mmariani 5050 days ago
>+ GIT - the stupid content tracker

Hmm… I think Linus thought it was stupid.

>+"git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.

Or... He was just in the everything-is-stupid mood.

>+ - random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a mispronounciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.

I think everyone just goes with that. :)

>+ - stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.

Here! He said it again!

>+ - "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.

GitHub surely took it seriously and made it happen. Thank you!

>+ - "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks

Maybe I'll take it. Mainly because I don't want to learn how to think like Linus.

>+This is a stupid (but extremely fast) directory content manager. It doesn't do a whole lot, but what it _does_ do is track directory contents efficiently.

And here's Linus saying git is stupid, again. I think he really means it. Well, at least that day he did.

Anyway, thanks for fossil Dr. Hip! :)

edit: formatting.

1 comments

He means stupid as in simple, unaware of things it does not need to know. Stupidity and ignorance in software is high praise and it's very difficult to achieve.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_hiding

That style is just linus' way. It comes across as a lot more aggressive on screen than in person. To get a better sense of him, I'd recommend watching this talk he gave evangelising git at google back in 2007. It's pretty entertaining, and very educational on the issues facing VCS designers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

To a certain extent, if you can knock git together in a couple of weeks you get a free pass to talk however you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone.

Ouch! No heed to be harsh. I certainly appreciate Linus's work. Kudos to him! I understood his point on the stupidity thing. It even took some laughs out of me. And that's the reason I posted that, so other people could too.

I don't mean to start a flamewar on scm, really. But I think git is overly complicated, and I believe I'm not alone on that.

Anyway, don't take things too seriously and have a good one!

PS: You gave a great idea. I should email Linus and offer to pay him some beers. That sure will be a great talk. Thanks mate!

Sorry, really didn't mean to be mean whatsoever. It's hard to convey tone in internet comments :)