The point of a clean git history is not to have a clean git history. The point is to make it possible to debug later, via bisect, or show, or even just a diff. The point is to make the workspace clean for the next guy.
Instead of letting it go, maybe we should have more discipline and organization in our lives and not less.
It's hard to tell what side you're on, because both sides refer to their stance as "clean history".
The pro-revisionists (squash, rebase) say they do what they do so the history looks clean (no intermediate commits breaking stuff, a "straight line" graph, etc)
The anti-revisionists say they do what they do so the history looks clean (can see the actual development, can safely diff different commits to see what changed in between, see the log in chronological order, etc).
> Instead of letting it go, maybe we should have more discipline and organization in our lives and not less.
Again, both sides could argue that they're the ones with more discipline.
> The point is to make it possible to debug later, via bisect, or show, or even just a diff.
This sounds anti-revisionist.
> The point is to make the workspace clean for the next guy.
This is one of the most common pro-revisionist arguments.
> > The point is to make it possible to debug later, via bisect, or show, or even just a diff.
> This sounds anti-revisionist.
That’s not how I see it. What makes debugging via bisecting easier is self-contained changes, not exactly chronological changes where you temporarily broke stuff and then fixed it before submitting your PR.
100% agree, but nobody gives a shit, and I’ve learned to just let it go. I’ve been in so many meetings, seen so many PSAs, and you know what happens every single time? Nothing. Maybe a couple people learn what interactive rebase is for the first time, try it once, say “it lost all my code” and never try it again. Good luck explaining ref log in these cases.
Did you notice, though, that rebase advocates use very "emotive" terminology when talking about git history? Like it's a subject they care about? Seems awfully touchy feely.
You say that like it's a bad thing. If there are two groups of people, and one of them is indicating (via words or behavior) that they don't care about something all that much and the other is indicating that they do care about that something quite a bit, why would I ever listen to the ones that don't care? It is almost tautological that the group that actually cares is going to have the more persuasive arguments and is thus far more likely to be right than the apathetic group.
I don't know if "emotive" is the right word, because to me this whole discussion is like trying to tell someone to be less sloppy because they make a mess when eating at their desk, knowing that the custodians will clean up after them.
Instead of letting it go, maybe we should have more discipline and organization in our lives and not less.