Hey - A Conceptual Simplication....

A Clean checkout command might be...

The Git model does not seem to go far enough conceptually, for some unexplainable reason...

In particular, why is Git not treating the entire working tree as the versioned document (qualified of course by the .gitignore file).

Instead, Git is treating a manually maintained list of files within the working tree as the versioned document, this list being initialized and manually amended by the "Git add/rm/mv" commands, etc.

The result is conceptual complexity and rather counter-intuitive behavior. For example, adding and renaming files outside of Git is not considered editing the version until you subsequently do a "Git Add ." Contrast that with editing or deleting files outside of Git. Yet adding and renaming files and folders is a significant part of substantive projects, especially in the early stages and experimental branches.

Granted, this is not a big deal functionally, but what is being lost is conceptual simplicity (and consistency, in my book) and conceptual simplicity is a key value point, if not THE key.

Also can we augment checkout to totally CLEAN the working directory prior to a restore. If necessary we can augment .gitignore to stipulate those files or folders that should be excluded from the cleaning. This suggestion is in recognition of the fact that if you are not versioning the file, it is typically trash; which becomes the case when the entire working treat is treated as the versioned document.

Consequently, I recommend the following new commands:
	"Git commit -x"   -- performs a "Git add ." then a "Git commit"
	"Git checkout -x" -- that clean the working tree prior to perform a
checkout

P.S. Great your work.

George Dennie, BMath
The Point Of Sale People
www.pospeople.com
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