[OT] Question about Git branches

[Ben Finney]

Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:

> I agree. If a post on parquet flooring were held for moderation, I
> would discard it. Threads that wander off into parquet flooring type
> topics are best let die.

I'm glad to know that, thank you.

> >> (2) Parquetry flooring has nothing to do with Python programming,
> >> while source control is very relevant. Asking questions about
> >> revision control is at least as on-topic as asking what editor one
> >> should use for Python programming,
>
> The proper parallel is revision control for Python versus editor for
> Python.

Right. I'd consider “how do I use Emacs?” to be inappropriate here, and
would want the question directed to a more appropriate forum. When it's
“how do I use Emacs to correctly indent Python code?” the question is
appropriate here. I'm of the opinion the original question was of the
first, inappropriate, kind.

> Since Frank is a known Python user, I presume 'for Python' was
> part of his question. Revision control for word processing would be a
> bit far afield for this list.

I didn't see a good reason to think the question had any particular
relevance to Python programming (no more than, say, “how do I use Emacs
correctly?”) and responded on that basis.

I acknowledge that's a judgement call, made by a participant with no
special power here. There is an infinite number of topics we could
discuss, and would likely be of interest to many people here.

Just because some individuals may be found to talk about a topic doesn't
make this forum appropriate for that discussion. That was the explicit
reason given for a question acknowledged to be off-topic, and *that's*
why I responded firmly: the reason given is invalid.

The usefulness of a particular forum is only maintained by maintaining
the common explicit topic of interest as the criterion, and redirecting
most topics away.

-- 
 \             “I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we |
  `\     understand this cosmos, in which we float like a mote of dust |
_o__)                 in the morning sky.” —Carl Sagan, _Cosmos_, 1980 |
Ben Finney