Re: VCS comparison table

--- Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:

Well, in the git world, it's really just one shared repository that has 
separate branch-namespaces, and separate working trees (aka "checkouts"). 
So yes, it probably matches what bazaar would call a checkout.

Almost nobody seems to actually use it that way in git - it's mostly more 
efficient to just have five different branches in the same working tree, 
and switch between them. When you switch between branches in git, git only 
rewrites the part of your working tree that actually changed, so switching 
is extremely efficient even with a large repo. 

So there is seldom any real need or reason to actually have multiple 
checkouts. But it certainly _works_.

It does work, very well at that.

I have a directory for each separate branch and simply use
cd(1) to change the current working directory to that branch.
So, instead of "git checkout <branch>", I do "cd ../<branch>".

One only needs to watch out when one updates the repository.
If there had been updates in those branches, then one needs
to git-reset the "branch" directory... (you know what I mean)
(For example when I come to work in the morning an sync up
 with home from my usb key...)

The script is called:
Usage: git-mkdir-of-branch <original-directory> <branch> <new-directory>
  where <branch> is the name of an existing branch in <original-directory>/.git/refs/heads

and uses simple symbolic links and some git plumbing to do the
job.  It can be found in my git trees.  I never bothered to send
it out to Junio, since it could be considered heretic. ;-)

     Luben