staging vs index vs cache [LWN.net]

staging vs index vs cache

Posted Apr 14, 2009 20:32 UTC (Tue) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054)
In reply to: Book Review: Pragmatic Version Control Using Git by nye
Parent article: Book Review: Pragmatic Version Control Using Git

Sounds to me like a classic case of developers wanting to use names based
on internal concepts, and users/teachers wanting to use names based on
user-visible behavior. And in this case, the preference for "index"
appears to be primarily for historical reasons. (I can't really blame
them for that.)

As a user, I'd prefer to have both consistent user-visible naming and
naming that's consistent with the behavior I see. Based on that mailing
list post, the developers appear to be already stuck with the
inconsistency of "index" vs "cache", and don't want a third name even if
it's more consistent with the bahavior.

Even (especially) after reading the developer's explanation, I
think "index" is the wrong name for the concept and just adds confusion.
I'm not sure "cache" is much better, though it is a little better.

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staging vs index vs cache

Posted Apr 17, 2009 16:58 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

Learning Git, I wasted far too much time and effort trying to reconcile what I was reading about "the index" with my understanding of "index" as a common English (and data processing) word.

In fact, I don't think I ever did figure out what the index is; I eventually had to give up on Git for lack of quality documentation. I'm looking forward to reading this book, especially now that I know the author isn't afraid to improve on classic terminology. Maybe, unlike so many engineers, he's able to place himself in the shoes of a beginner.