9ef43dd7ad
These are kept short by simply deferring to PEP-8. Most of the Python
code in Git is already very close to this style (some things in contrib/
are not).
Rationale for version suggestions:
- Amongst the noise in [1], there isn't any disagreement about using
2.6 as a base (see also [2]), although Brandon Casey recently added
support for 2.4 and 2.5 to git-p4 [3].
- Restricting ourselves to 2.6+ makes aiming for Python 3 compatibility
significantly easier [4].
- Advocating Python 3 support in all scripts is currently unrealistic
because:
- 'p4 -G' provides output in a format that is very hard to use with
Python 3 (and its documentation claims Python 3 is unsupported).
- Mercurial does not support Python 3.
- Bazaar does not support Python 3.
- But we should try to make new scripts compatible with Python 3
because all new Python development is happening on version 3 and the
Python community will eventually stop supporting Python 2 [5].
- Python 3.1 is required to support the 'surrogateescape' error handler
for encoding/decodng filenames to/from Unicode strings and Python 3.0
is not longer supported.
[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/210329
[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/210429
[3] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/214579
[4] http://docs.python.org/3.3/howto/pyporting.html#try-to-support-python-2-6-and-newer-only
[5] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0404/
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
GIT - the stupid content tracker
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not
actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a
mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the
dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually
works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an
unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations
and full access to internals.
Git is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public
License version 2 (some parts of it are under different licenses,
compatible with the GPLv2). It was originally written by Linus
Torvalds with help of a group of hackers around the net.
Please read the file INSTALL for installation instructions.
See Documentation/gittutorial.txt to get started, then see
Documentation/everyday.txt for a useful minimum set of commands, and
Documentation/git-commandname.txt for documentation of each command.
If git has been correctly installed, then the tutorial can also be
read with "man gittutorial" or "git help tutorial", and the
documentation of each command with "man git-commandname" or "git help
commandname".
CVS users may also want to read Documentation/gitcvs-migration.txt
("man gitcvs-migration" or "git help cvs-migration" if git is
installed).
Many Git online resources are accessible from http://git-scm.com/
including full documentation and Git related tools.
The user discussion and development of Git take place on the Git
mailing list -- everyone is welcome to post bug reports, feature
requests, comments and patches to git@vger.kernel.org (read
Documentation/SubmittingPatches for instructions on patch submission).
To subscribe to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in
the body to majordomo@vger.kernel.org. The mailing list archives are
available at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git and other archival
sites.
The messages titled "A note from the maintainer", "What's in
git.git (stable)" and "What's cooking in git.git (topics)" and
the discussion following them on the mailing list give a good
reference for project status, development direction and
remaining tasks.