Documentation/remote-helpers: Rewrite description

Rewrite the description section to describe what exactly remote
helpers are and the need for them. Also mention the curl family of
remote helpers as an example.

[jc: with readability fixes from Jonathan squashed in]

Signed-off-by: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt b/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt
index 1b5f61aa0b85ec592c6efbfa8be08fe83f576be5..9d86c2679a3e4142e9b263908c6eaf7a2187a4f0 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-remote-helpers.txt
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ git-remote-helpers(1)
 
 NAME
 ----
-git-remote-helpers - Helper programs for interoperation with remote git
+git-remote-helpers - Helper programs to interact with remote repositories
 
 SYNOPSIS
 --------
@@ -12,11 +12,32 @@ SYNOPSIS
 DESCRIPTION
 -----------
 
-These programs are normally not used directly by end users, but are
-invoked by various git programs that interact with remote repositories
-when the repository they would operate on will be accessed using
-transport code not linked into the main git binary. Various particular
-helper programs will behave as documented here.
+Remote helper programs are normally not used directly by end users,
+but they are invoked by git when it needs to interact with remote
+repositories git does not support natively.  A given helper will
+implement a subset of the capabilities documented here. When git
+needs to interact with a repository using a remote helper, it spawns
+the helper as an independent process, sends commands to the helper's
+standard input, and expects results from the helper's standard
+output. Because a remote helper runs as an independent process from
+git, there is no need to re-link git to add a new helper, nor any
+need to link the helper with the implementation of git.
+
+Every helper must support the "capabilities" command, which git will
+use to determine what other commands the helper will accept.  Other
+commands generally concern facilities like discovering and updating
+remote refs, transporting objects between the object database and
+the remote repository, and updating the local object store.
+
+Helpers supporting the 'fetch' capability can discover refs from the
+remote repository and transfer objects reachable from those refs to
+the local object store. Helpers supporting the 'push' capability can
+transfer local objects to the remote repository and update remote refs.
+
+Git comes with a "curl" family of remote helpers, that handle various
+transport protocols, such as 'git-remote-http', 'git-remote-https',
+'git-remote-ftp' and 'git-remote-ftps'. They implement the capabilities
+'fetch', 'option', and 'push'.
 
 COMMANDS
 --------