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by js2 65 days ago
Right, I was thinking from a web-based UI. The "pull request" term is from git (AFAIK), but git itself was built to accommodate the earlier concept of mailing patches around. (Source: I've been using version control since RCS/SCCS days and contributed here and there to git in its infancy. Also an early user/contributor to Gerrit.)
1 comments
Izkata 65 days ago
> The "pull request" term is from git (AFAIK)

Possibly from github. It got popularized there at least, encouraging forking code, and is why so many people say "pull request" when they mean "merge request".

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js2 65 days ago
GitHub took the "pull request" terminology from Git. A kernel developer (say) would have a bunch of changes ready in their local Git server and would request a pull from Linus, hence a pull request. There's literally a command for it:

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-request-pull

The command is so old it's still written in shell:

https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/git-request-pull.sh

It was first added July 27, 2005:

https://github.com/git/git/commit/ab421d2c7886341c246544bc8d...

https://lore.kernel.org/git/20050726073036.GJ6098@mythryan2....

But even then, it simply codified existing terminology.

Ah, someone else did the research, so minimally BitKeeper had the "pull" command first and the term "pull request" falls naturally from that:

https://rdnlsmith.com/posts/2023/004/pull-request-origins/

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