Re: git commit/push and VC

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Ivan Shmakov writes:

 >  > (and typically pull the ref from the other repo).
 > 
 >      Refs are just human-readable aliases to the commit identifiers.
 >      It’s perfectly possible to merge in a branch using the latter.

How do you propose reliably identifying the *current* branch HEAD
without dereferencing that ref?  Even if it's possible, it's likely
beyond the capability of the new users this thread is about.

 >  > There are also reasons why using alternates is not necessarily
 >  > great (especially for new users) -- eg, it means that rebase,
 >  > commit --amend, filter-branch, and so on can corrupt the
 >  > dependent repo.
 > 
 >      Only if the objects comprising the original commit get deleted
 >      in the process; I’m unsure on what are the conditions to that.

GC will do it eventually.  Might take a couple months.

 >      Otherwise, the objects are immutable, and the likes of --amend
 >      just create a brand new commit based on the given one; the
 >      latter being left intact.

Yes, I know that.