Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names

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From: Kevin Ballard
Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:39 pm

On Jan 16, 2008, at 11:46 AM, Jakub Narebski wrote:


There's two different ways to do filesystem encodings. One is to have =20=

the fs simply not care about encoding, which is what the linux world =20
seems to prefer. Sure, this is great in that what you create the file =20=

with is what you get back, but on the other hand, given an arbitrary =20
non-ASCII file on disk, you have absolutely no idea what the encoding =20=

should be and you can't display it without making assumptions (yes you =20=

can use heuristics, but you're still making assumptions). Filesystems =20=

like HFS+ that standardize the encoding, on the other hand, make it =20
such that you always know what the encoding of a file should be, so =20
you can always display and use the filename intelligently. It also =20
means it plays much nicer in a non-ASCII world, since you don't have =20
to worry about different normalizations of a given string referring to =20=

different files (it's one thing to be case-sensitive, but claiming =20
that "f=F6o" and "f=F6o" are different files just because one uses a =20
composed character and the other doesn't is extremely user-=20
unfriendly). On the other hand, what you create the file with may not =20=

be what you read back later, since the name has been standardized. =20
It's hard to say one is better than the other, they're just different =20=

ways of doing it. However, I have noticed that everybody who's voiced =20=

an opinion on this list in favor of the encoding-agnostic approach =20
seem to be unwilling to accept that any other approach might have =20
validity, to the extent of calling an OS/filesystem that does things =20
different stupid or insane. This strikes me as extremely elitist and =20
risks alienating what I expect to be a fast-growing group of users =20
(i.e. OS X users).

I'm willing to give Linus a free pass on calling other OS's stupid and =20=

insane, as I don't think Linux would exist as it does today without =20
his strong opinions, but I don't think this should give carte blanche =20=

to the rest of the community for this inflammatory behavior.

I should note that I'm only taking the time to discuss this because, =20
despite the fact that I'm new to git, I really like it and I want it =20
to work better. And one area that it has a problem with is the de-=20
facto filesystem on my OS of choice. However, attempts to discuss the =20=

problem invariable end up with multiple people calling my OS stupid =20
and insane simply because it differs in a particular design decision. =20=

This is not a good way to build a community or to build a better =20
product, and I hope it can be improved.

-Kevin Ballard

--=20
Kevin Ballard
http://kevin.sb.org
kevin@sb.org
http://www.tildesoft.com
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Messages in current thread:
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 8:34 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 9:32 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Kevin Ballard, (Wed Jan 16, 1:39 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 3:23 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Eyvind Bernhardsen, (Wed Jan 16, 3:37 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Wed Jan 16, 4:03 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 5:33 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 5:35 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Wed Jan 16, 5:54 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 5:57 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Jan 16, 6:08 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Wed Jan 16, 9:51 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Wed Jan 16, 10:11 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Junio C Hamano, (Wed Jan 16, 10:15 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Mitch Tishmack, (Thu Jan 17, 12:11 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Thu Jan 17, 3:08 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Thu Jan 17, 3:22 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Thu Jan 17, 3:28 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Thu Jan 17, 4:10 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Thu Jan 17, 4:46 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Thu Jan 17, 4:51 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Thu Jan 17, 5:53 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Thu Jan 17, 6:05 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Thu Jan 17, 6:40 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Thu Jan 17, 8:57 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Thu Jan 17, 11:18 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Thu Jan 17, 11:42 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Thu Jan 17, 11:44 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Thu Jan 17, 12:11 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Thu Jan 17, 3:09 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Robin Rosenberg, (Thu Jan 17, 5:44 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Robin Rosenberg, (Thu Jan 17, 6:05 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Robin Rosenberg, (Thu Jan 17, 6:27 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Robin Rosenberg, (Fri Jan 18, 2:42 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Fri Jan 18, 10:11 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Fri Jan 18, 1:50 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Sat Jan 19, 11:58 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Sat Jan 19, 3:58 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Sat Jan 19, 5:11 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Sat Jan 19, 10:45 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Dmitry Potapov, (Sat Jan 19, 11:14 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Sat Jan 19, 11:53 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Sun Jan 20, 12:26 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Wincent Colaiuta, (Sun Jan 20, 2:34 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Johannes Schindelin, (Sun Jan 20, 6:15 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Mon Jan 21, 11:12 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Mon Jan 21, 11:16 am)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Linus Torvalds, (Mon Jan 21, 12:41 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Mon Jan 21, 2:06 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Mon Jan 21, 2:17 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Mon Jan 21, 2:43 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Mon Jan 21, 3:45 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Mon Jan 21, 3:56 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Martin Langhoff, (Mon Jan 21, 8:21 pm)
Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names, Eric W. Biederman, (Tue Jan 22, 7:46 pm)