> None of these are the most efficient way to do this (you can use git show and git log -S or maybe git grep to accomplish something similar), but personally I always forget the syntax and navigating a filesystem feels easier to me.
i feel like some of the old-school commands will benefit from long args, e.g., '--search'. at the time of writing, the current `git log` documentation[1]'s `-S' has _one_ instance of the word 'search'.
(un)related to the article, author went on to contribute documentation updates to git, which were much needed [2]
The two filesystems I could that were natively supported by Mac OS were WebDav and NFS. I couldn’t tell which would be easier to implement so I just tried both”
Given the advent of LLMs and agentic coding, I believe this article needs re-visiting as it makes it much more discoverable to compare individual files across commits.
Nice idea. But when taking commits as folders one should delete, add and remame files in the folder and that is not possible in a commit because it creates another commit.
So I think this is nit the right mental model
You're being downvoted, but, seriously... NFS is a joke for anything outside of an enterprise setup with a bunch of ancillary support services in place.
The fact that NFSv4 has no concept of true "Authentication" and just blindly accepts whatever the client sends is the craziest network application design ever:
Client: Hi, NFS server, I'm Bob! UID=1000
Server: Hi Bob! Here's access to all of Bob's files! I trust you and don't need a password or anything!
Client: Thanks!!!
Some of you may nitpick and say, "well ackkkuallyy, NFS supports authentication through GSSAPI/krb."
And to you, I say, that's crazy! Setting up Kerberos just to authenticate users for access to my Linux ISOs is a crazy large requirement! Sure, it might make sense for an enterprise that uses Kerberos + LDAP + NFS + certificate management.
> None of these are the most efficient way to do this (you can use git show and git log -S or maybe git grep to accomplish something similar), but personally I always forget the syntax and navigating a filesystem feels easier to me.
i feel like some of the old-school commands will benefit from long args, e.g., '--search'. at the time of writing, the current `git log` documentation[1]'s `-S' has _one_ instance of the word 'search'.
(un)related to the article, author went on to contribute documentation updates to git, which were much needed [2]
[1]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-log#Documentation/git-log.txt--... [2]: https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/01/08/a-data-model-for-git/
What, you didn't know to search for pickaxe!? :-)
Meanwhile, --grep searches the log message. Yeah, the git CLI is an ergonomic nightmare and I've been using it since the very beginning.
FWIW, I can't think of a single time I've wanted to use -S instead of -G.
FTA: “problem 1: webdav or NFS?
The two filesystems I could that were natively supported by Mac OS were WebDav and NFS. I couldn’t tell which would be easier to implement so I just tried both”
I might find out that it is incomplete, buggy or a nuisance to use, but FSKit (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/FSKit) would be my first choice.
macOS actually has an excellent SMB client, so the options actually are: WebDAV, NFS (3.0 and 4.0), SMB, FSKit.
By excellent do you mean bearable? macOS’s SMB stack is certainly not excellent.
By bearable do you mean it exists? It's fucking shite.
AFAIK, SMB doesn't support symbolic links.
Related: Fossil has a `fusefs` subcommand: https://fossil-scm.org/home/help/fusefs
The DIRECTORY/checkins/ directory doesn't list out anything by itself, but you can look things up by any of the supported checkin names (hash, tag, branch, date...): https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/checkin_names.wiki
This is my favorite cursed finding: https://github.com/zevweiss/booze
FUSE-bindings for "filesystems in bash", eg:
https://github.com/zevweiss/booze/blob/master/cowsayfs.sh#L5...
...I think that WebDAV is "the way" compared to FUSE, but I'm always intrigued by the idea of virtual filesystems as an implementation face.Given the advent of LLMs and agentic coding, I believe this article needs re-visiting as it makes it much more discoverable to compare individual files across commits.
Nice idea. But when taking commits as folders one should delete, add and remame files in the folder and that is not possible in a commit because it creates another commit. So I think this is nit the right mental model
Files and folders can be read-only, a concept that has been around for about as long as the folders abstraction itself.
BTW, if you want a simple NFSv4 client in Go, feel free to use mine: https://github.com/Cyberax/go-nfs-client
Making it into an NFSv4 server should also be pretty easy.
NFS.. stop right there
You're being downvoted, but, seriously... NFS is a joke for anything outside of an enterprise setup with a bunch of ancillary support services in place.
The fact that NFSv4 has no concept of true "Authentication" and just blindly accepts whatever the client sends is the craziest network application design ever:
Some of you may nitpick and say, "well ackkkuallyy, NFS supports authentication through GSSAPI/krb."And to you, I say, that's crazy! Setting up Kerberos just to authenticate users for access to my Linux ISOs is a crazy large requirement! Sure, it might make sense for an enterprise that uses Kerberos + LDAP + NFS + certificate management.
//end rant of an old bitter Linux sysadmin