Re: base

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Óscar Fuentes <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:27:29 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > I submit that a good model does not need to be based on implementation
> > details.
> 
> In the case of git, you got this backwards. As the model is so simple,
> the implementation is immediate, so when the model is explained it is
> easy to get the impression that they are explained the
> implementation. And vice-versa: unlike the Emacs redisplay code, it is
> easy to describe the model by describing the implementation. They are
> almost the same.

So you are saying that there's no way a user can understand how to use
git efficiently without knowing about SHA1, hashes, blobs, index
files, and how they all live happily in disk files and point to one
another?

> If you have a mental model, I have my own and the bzr developers each
> have theirs... it is a recipe for confussion when we need to
> communicate, don't you think?

Good documentation should cause you and me form models that are very
similar if not identical.  The models of the developers I don't care
about, as long as they care about mine (the documentation should tell
them what my model should be).

> And as your model may not fit the reality
> (because it is your creation based on incomplete sources) you may get
> upset from time to time because the tool does not act as you expect and
> the developers refuse to consider those deviations as bugs.

Models need to be updated from time to time.  It's inevitable.