On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Felipe Contreras [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

quoted

What are the examples you have in mind, code that we want to forbid
standalone from using?

init_copy_notes_for_rewrite(). Nothing outside the 'git' binary would
need that. If you disagree, show me an example.

"Nothing would need that", if you are talking about the current
codebase, I would agree that nothing would link to it.

But that is not a good justification for closing door to others that
come later who may want to have a standalone that would want to use
it.  Think about rewriting filter-branch.sh in C but not as a
built-in, for example.

Why would anybody rewrite filter-branch, and not make it a builtin? It
should be a builtin. That's the whole point of builtins.

Moreover, if you are going to argue that we shouldn't be closing the
door, then why not link ./builtin/*.o to libgit.a? If you are
seriously considering the highly unlikely hypothetical standalone
git-filter-branch scenario, you should consider the even more likely
scenario where somebody needs to access code from ./builtin/*.o; that
scenario is not even hypothetical, we know it's happened multiple
times, and we know it's going to happen again.

-- 
Felipe Contreras