Updating the Git protocol for SHA-256

Re:Updating the Git protocol for SHA-256 by m463 on Saturday June 20, 2020 @06:48AM (#23583163)

I wish hashes were more human-readable/human-writable.

maybe use a scheme where the prefix of the hash could be mapped to a common word.

So with a contrived example based on 100 and:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English

the former hash 9221920 would break off "92" from 21920 and look in the word list to allow any of the following:

  9221920            old style hash could say just 92
  92-new-21920       or use 92 + 92nd most common word, "new"
  new-21920          or skip 92 which is redundant with "new"
  new                or just use new alone

obviously 100 and base 10 would have collisions, so use a larger number and constricted word lengths to find 256 or 4096 or 65535 words.

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Re:Updating the Git protocol for SHA-256 by tom_mellior on Saturday June 20, 2020 @09:28AM (#23583815)

If you used a dictionary of 100 words, you would get a prefix collision every 100 commits, i.e., within days or weeks for even moderately busy projects. Using a larger list would just shift the problem by a bit. You could use tuples of words (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words for example) to avoid the problem. But then you'd be much longer than current Git hash prefixes.

And why? What would be the use? The two things I do with Git hashes: (a) copy and paste, for searching for something; (b) occasionally visually comparing hashes. Copy and paste works well, in fact in pretty much any terminal or other tool double click will select the whole hash, which wouldn't be as simple if the hash were multiple words with separators. Visual comparison might be marginally easier with familiar words, but for me it's a niche use case, so I don't think optimizing for it would be useful.

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Re:Updating the Git protocol for SHA-256 by m463 on Saturday June 20, 2020 @08:06PM (#23588538)

my last line addressed 100 words.

I also was trying to augment the current system, not replace it. so the "92" and the word "new" were equivalent and you could use one, or the other or both.

The basic idea I'm putting forward, is that I think it would be easier, on the command line, than copy-paste (which requires a mouse)

I can type words pretty fast, and I can keep a word in memory easily.

Remember it extends the current model without changing it.

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