[rfc] history of 'cherrypicking' term

[James Blackwell]

The first time I ever came across the term was in the (then written in
bash) Gnu Arch tutorial. I didn't see references for the term in the RCS
context as early as 2002 or 2003. I didn't see others start to use the
term until much later.  His usage of the word is a great example of
metaphor -- walk up to a tree and pick the cherries (revisions) that you
want while leaving the ones behind that you don't.




On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 07:17:04PM -0700, Robey Pointer wrote:
> 
> On 27 Jun 2006, at 12:28, Jan Hudec wrote:
> 
> >On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 14:21:03 -0500, John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> >>>I think it really refers to picking (and eating only) the cherry  
> >>>from the top
> >>>of a cake and leaving the rest as a metaphor for only taking the  
> >>>best part
> >>>and discarding the rest. I think at least in Czech one can also  
> >>>speak about
> >>>picking raisins in the same sense.
> >>>
> >>
> >>I hadn't ever heard of it, though it makes sense.
> >
> >At least around here it's quite common to say something is a  
> >'cherry on
> >a cake' to mean it's a small nice bonus or the last bit to make  
> >something
> >really perfect.
> 
> I'd never heard of that either.  In (American?) english, a  
> "cherrypicker" is a really tall ladder, even when it's not used for  
> literally picking cherries, so the whole concept of "cherrypicking"  
> revisions had always caused confusing images in my head.  Now I get  
> it. :)
> 
> robey
> 

-- 
My home page:   <a href="http://jblack.linuxguru.net">James Blackwell</a>
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