No, they aren't pointless at all. But if you want to collaborate using
submodules they IMO work best if all your coworkers are able to access
the same submodule repos you are pushing to. Otherwise you'll have to
transport all submodule changes additionally to those of the superproject
(which might be more of a hassle than not using submodules in the first
place). Then you might be better off pulling the modules into your repo
using "git subtree" or "gitslave".
A possibility to put all submodule commits in the object directory of
the superproject has been discussed some time ago on this list [1] and
at the last GitTogether. That might be just what you need, but I am not
aware of any work done in that direction yet.
No, Git works perfectly fine with central repositories too (and that is
a feature :-). But I think I understand where your impression comes from.
Submodules don't work very well when you change URLs (that can result
in forcing your coworkers to do a "git submodule sync" in their repo
every time they switch to a commit with a changed URL). But while that
somehow works not being able to access a submodules repo doesn't work at
all. So the constraint for submodules is to have a repo which is visible
for the people you work with.
But submodules don't really force you into the centralized model, as you
can modify the .gitmodules file e.g. in a downstream fork and let it point
to your own forked version of the submodules repos where you can do your
own development independent of the submodules upstream.
Yep, thanks for sharing that!
[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/151473/
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