Re: [RFC, PATCH] A new merge algorithm (EXPERIMENTAL)

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005, Fredrik Kuivinen wrote:

quoted

In real numbers it is as follows: In Linus' kernel tree there are
5996 commits. 400 of those have more than one parent. Of those 400
merge commits 4 have more than one shared head.

Ok, that's already interesting in itself. I was wanting to re-run all the 
merges with the new "git-merge-base -a" to see which merges might have had 
different merge bases, and you've actually done that. Interesting to see 
the numbers.

Fredrik, mind giving us the commit ID of those four for us to
take a look at them?

I am of two minds on this. I hate the notion of a more complex merge. But
at the same time, it clearly is a very interesting case when we do have
multiple possible shared parents, and I think that at the very least we
should warn the user. And using a more complex merge algorithm when it
happens seems to be a very valid thing to do.

I agree.  GIT is lightening fast for trivial cases and we can
afford to spend more time to handle more complex ones carefully,
at the same time telling the user what we are doing is a good thing.

Using python, which people have less exposure to, sounds like an 
additional thorny issue..

Not too big a problem for me to follow the patch ;-).