I'm curious why you think hg had a prominent role in this. I mean, it did pop up at almost exactly the same time for exactly the same reasons (BK, kernel drama) but I don't see evidence of Matt's benchmarks or development affecting the Git design decisions at all.
Here's one of the first threads where Matt (Olivia) introduces the project and benchmarks, but it seems like the list finds it unremarkable enough comparatively to not dig into it much:
I agree that the UI is generally better and some decisions where arguably better (changeset evolution, which came much later, is pretty amazing) but I have a hard time agreeing that hg influenced Git in some fundamental way.
"One particular aspect that often gets left out of this creation myth, especially by the author of Github is that Mercurial had a prominent role." implies to me that Hg had a role in the creation of Git, which is why I was reacting to that.
For the deadnaming comment, it wasn't out of disrespect, but when referring to an email chain, it could otherwise be confusing if you're not aware of her transition.
I wasn't sponsoring hg-git, I wrote it. I also wrote the original Subversion bridge for GitHub, which was actually recently deprecated.
> For the deadnaming comment, it wasn't out of disrespect, but when referring to an email chain, it could otherwise be confusing if you're not aware of her transition.
I assumed it was innocent. But the norm when naming a married woman or another person who changed their name is to call them their current name and append the clarifying information. Not vice versa. Jane Jones née Smith. Olivia (then Matt).
Is this not a case where it is justified, given that she at that time was named Matt, and it's crucial information to understand the mail thread linked to? I certainly would not understand at all without that context.
The proper way to do that is say, something like "Olivia (Matt)" and then continue. You use the preferred name, and if you need to refer to the deadname to disambiguate, you do it.
If you can avoid the need to disambiguate, you do that too. The name really is dead. You shouldn't use it if at all possible.
Mercurial had a prominent role in the creation myth. It didn't influence git, but it was there at the same time, for the same reason, and at one time, with an equal amount of influence. Bitbucket was once seen as fairly comparable to Github. People would choose git or hg for their projects with equal regularity. The users were familiar with both choices.
Linus never cared about hg, but lots of people that cared about git at one point would also be at least familiar with some notions from hg.
Here's one of the first threads where Matt (Olivia) introduces the project and benchmarks, but it seems like the list finds it unremarkable enough comparatively to not dig into it much:
https://lore.kernel.org/git/Pine.LNX.4.58.0504251859550.1890...
I agree that the UI is generally better and some decisions where arguably better (changeset evolution, which came much later, is pretty amazing) but I have a hard time agreeing that hg influenced Git in some fundamental way.