Re: [PATCH 2/2] Add Author and Documentation sections to git-for-each-ref.txt

Michael J Gruber [off-list ref] writes:

Just kidding!

(Jeff is the 2nd main f-e-r author, but Junio created it.)

Thanks for bringing this up.

In the very early days (like back when the project was only 12 months old)
it made sense to record that this and that command were primarily done by
that person.  But I don't think it is a good idea anymore.

For example, format-patch was my invention and all the code was mine back
when it was a script.  Later it was reimplemented in C by Dscho based on
my earlier work.  But a large part of the actual implementation was done
by using the generic revision traversal machinery, whose primary authors
back then were Linus and me.  The silly original UI design everybody hates
("format-patch <upstream>" is not similar to 'git log <upstream>..'") is
"owned" by me, the user facing main() implementation is "owned" by Dscho,
and the backend machinery is "owned" by Linus and me.

Who should we list, and more importantly, does it make sense to keep the
list up to date as the system evolves?

As the project and the community grew, and also as the internal machinery
infrastructure got more modularized, I think ownership at the individual
command level has become almost meaningless concept.

Same reasoning applies to the "Documented by".  I think it's time for
these two sections to go from most (if not all) pages.