Why the hell do they call it a "pull request". That is so bas-ackwards. Can you say ESOL?

What the hell is ESOL?

Request for changes to be pulled into the remote master

Words are hard and stuff

Merge request makes more sense to me but both are technically correct.

Eat Shit Only Later?

You request the remote to pull your changes

Even though I only ever seen the name Pull Request because of github and azure devops, I like Merge Request better.

It's supposedly from the perspective of the repo maintainer being asked to "pull changes into the codebase".

But I've always felt that explanation stinks. Cause if I accept some change I don't say "I'm gonna pull these changes into master". I say I'm going to "merge" in some way. The merging is the acceptance step. Pulling to me is mainly a fetch, syncing local branches to remote braches.

I think some other platform besides github call it a "merge request" which I find more appropriate.

@12bitfloat but do you really say "I'm gonna pull these changes from the feature branch into the remote master" - wouldn't you say "merge"?

When I've accepted a PR and merge it (even if it's a squash merge or a rebase) and I'm notifying the author I say "merged ✅", wouldn't say "pulled ✅"

Git pull does fetch and merge at the same time.
When you want some other person usually the maintainer to pull (with the above definition of pull) your code you submit a Pull Request for them to do it.
Git has existed before github, gitlab or bitbucket and has its own terminology which they integrated into their workflow and created things like pull request which is a workflow around git's branch compare functions with extra steps to discuss the changes.

in gitlab it's called merge request 👌

Also hot take, but complaining about Weird naming and then using Abbreviations is exactly the kind of sarcasm i love on Devrant.

Honestly, it doesn't matter.

Though I still want to know what ESOL means.

git pull *can* be a rebase, merge, fast forward etc. Git pull is just a convenience wrapper around several commands.

Getting riled up about what it's named is classic dev procrastination.

If you would be entirely correct, it would be: Change request.

As simple as that.

Because merge / pull / rebase etc are just that - changes that get applied via a specific algorithm.

But the whole discussion is just procrastinating.... It doesn't matter at all.

Pull request makes a lot of sense if you don't have permission to push to the repo directly.

@12bitfloat I suppose you *pull* your files into your hard drive too?

@IntrusionCM English for speakers of other languages

@cafecortado Wouldn't "merge" suggest that the file that you are saving to the project is going to have it's data intermingled with another file?

@xcodesucks okay....

Interesting abbreviation.

Meaning non english speaking people don't get the meaning of pull request?

@Lensflare "merge file X into the project" makes sense.

"Pull" into a project could have as easily been "Push" into the project and would not have lost any meaning (or not gained in this case).

@xcodesucks yes, that's what happens, the file on your branch will be intermingled with the same file on the master branch

@jiraTicket Or even "insert" or "save". Indeed "merge into project" or "add to project" or "replace in project" but "pull into project"?

In English the verb "pull" suggests that the person providing it is resistant to letting go and a force must be exerted on the file to get it out of their system into the code repo.

It would make more sense to just "Save" the file into the project and the project manager can accept or reject the modification as a revision. (admittedly the way we did it in the beginning with Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW))

@xcodesucks but merge is not enough if you also need to pull the commits from another remote

@electrineer A Pushme Pullu situation?

@xcodesucks
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

@xcodesucks I think you should stay away from the oxford dictionary...

While you're not wrong...

It sounds way exaggerated.

If you're following that kind of logic, anything sounds dangerous.

And saving to branch would be very ambiguous.

The pull logic makes sense when one fetches and merges changes.

Git pull is the equivalent of fetch + merge.

You pull changes from one branch (more correct: reference) to another.

Of course, if you take the word entirely out of the context of git, it doesn't make sense.

Kinda like beating your dick.

It means masturbation. Not (necessarily, unless specific fetish present) cock and ball torture.

@IntrusionCM It is a suggestion that a person who does not speak English as their first language used this particular English verb in the wrong context.

Sort of like those half-translated directions from Chinese to something else for assembly of furniture or a toy.

Pull makes some (but very little) sense, and infers other things improperly.

If I have to "pull" you out of bed, you are resisting getting out of bed. "Pull" infers that the person providing the file is resisting doing so.

If I "pull" something from somewhere or someone else, it infers that I do not have that something and must go get it. The act of "submitting" something means it is being "pushed" or "given" to another.

It is thus an anachronism to say "submit a pull request" because the act of pulling references that which the "puller" does not have, hence was not submitted! 🤪

@xcodesucks again...

Context. As far as I know, this is all based on the slang of GIT.

So you have to understand GIT to understand the slang.

@xcodesucks the changes don't travel on their own, so the person who had access to the repo needs to pull them. It's also the opposite for pushing.

And just to give an example of why I hate this so passionately.

If you ever had to read a *literal* translated academic book... It is like trying to communicate with aphasia.

E.g. frame size / TCP becomes "Fensterrahmengröße".

Aka Window frame size.

Which makes zero sense...

I could go on, but then I will not sleep tonight which will be bad for mankind.

@IntrusionCM Javadrechbuch Fensterrahmenarbeit

@arekxv This is a fair point. Before anything like github was created - perhaps some repo maintainers would review a feature-branch and on approval actually use the pull command to integrate it into the main branch. So when github was first created if someone like that was involved maybe they felt it made sense to call it a "pull request"

But I'd argue it turned out to be a bad call, cause since we started managing stuff via github we don't use pull to merge branches any more - so it's feels like "merge request" would be a better term.

@xcodesucks

>"Pull" into a project could have easily been "Push"

The keyword "push" is kind of taken though because you could have a repo where you're not allowed to push branches to the remote, and then "push request" would sound like asking permission to push your branch to the remote at all - but this would be a separate thing from asking it to be merged into the main branch.