On Wed Dec 11, 2024 at 17:11, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > "Bence Ferdinandy" <bence@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> so I've been wondering about branch descriptions being just a local >> configuration. The only use-case I know for them is generating cover letters >> and request-pull, although I could imagine maybe the maintainer uses branch >> descriptions for storing the - well - branch descriptions for the "What's >> cooking" emails and the merge commit messages. > > FWIW, that is not how I maintain "What's cooking". Rather, the next > issue os "What's cooking" is pretty much edited manually, plus a > tool that notices when an existing topic advances in order to insert > these "(merged to 'next' on such and such day)" lines and turn '-' > bullets into '+', and move topics from other sections to 'graduated' > section. Especially when writing comments on a topic, being able to > read about other topics (which may be related) and the list of titles > helps a lot. > > There may be folks who find branch descriptions a useful way to keep > a quick reminder about the branch. I was also hoping it may be like > so, but I seem to have failed to exploit it as a useful component in > my workflow. > >> Now my problem with the description being a local configuration, is that >> I often work on patches on two different computers. I can easily share my patch >> notes with myself, but not the branch description. If these could be pushed and >> fetched like a note, I think that would open up some other nice possibilities >> as well, like having a standard place for MR/PR messages for forges, sharing >> proposed merge commit messages, maybe other things. > > If this is about draft work, I would use an empty commit at the tip > of the branch. No, this is about storing some meta-info about a branch, somewhat similarly how you can store meta-info about a commit in a note. > >> For my personal issue of sharing branch descriptions with myself, I could >> probably just make up a convention for myself, say using refs/notes/branches, >> but it would be nice to have this built in, instead of the local config branch >> description. >> >> From usage perspective I could imagine a new `--branch` flag for notes, which >> would tell `git notes` to operate on notes attached to branches instead of >> specific commits, probably stored under refs/notes/branches by default. Maybe >> add an `--edit-branch-note` to `git branch`. And of course have the option to >> use this note instead of the description configuration wherever it makes sense. >> >> What do you think? > > The notes tree is a hashmap that uses object names as the key. The > point of a branch is that it can grow by accumulating new commits on > it, or its commits rewritten with "rebase -i", and there are branches > with more than one commit. So to what commit on the branch would you > hang such a note on? Not to a commit, but to a branch. I mean I know a branch is just a reference to a specific commit, but in this case the mapping would be from the branch's _name_ to the note object. -- bence.ferdinandy.com
