On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 13:55, Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Apr 2009, Michael Witten wrote:
>
>> > And the term is already in use for this particular case,
>> > and it doesn't mean anything else at all (since, of course, the crypto
>> > thing is "SHA-1", not "sha1"), and it's short (which is important for
>> > making it easy to look at usage help).
>>
>> What happens when SHA-1 is shown to be broken or there is a better
>> alternative? Then we'll see "sha1 for historical reasons"... bleh!
>
> Why do you think SHA-1 has anything to do with it?
Well, it's named sha1.
> Git's sha1s could just
> as easily be 160 bits of a SHA-256 hash and there wouldn't be any
> user-visible difference. The term doesn't imply any particular significant
> connection to a particular algorithm.
Then give it a generic name like 'hash'.
> It could be like "pencil lead", which has never been made of lead,
> but is called that for no particularly important reason.
Hence the perennial:
"Hey! Did you know that pencil lead isn't lead at all?"
to which someone might respond:
"Why do you think lead has anything to do with it?"
Look familiar?
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