Re: Missing features in git

From: Edgar Toernig <froese@gmx.de>
Date: Nov 14, 2006, 18:55 UTC
Message-ID: <20061114195559.40967ee4.froese@gmx.de>
In-Reply-To: <20061114134958.5326.qmail@science.horizon.com>

linux@horizon.com wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

>
> Personally, I'd prefer if the requirement that HEAD point to
> refs/heads were enforced when checking in rather than checking out.
>   
> Then you could check out an arbitrary version without any of the annoyance
> above; I could "git checkout tags/foo" or even "git checkout deadbeef~3".
> I wouldn't be on a current branch (which would necessitate changing
> "git branch" output), so HEAD would simply contain an object ID directly
> rather than being a symlink/symref.

I wholeheartedly agree. For the casual user it's IMHO the most annoying behaviour of git that you can't simply checkout an arbitrary commit without creating a new (most of the time temporary) branch first. Often you don't plan to change the checked out tree and giving it a new branch name ahead is cumbersome, especially as you know that you'll never commit into it and have to delete the branch before checking out another tag. I would prefer this behaviour:

	$ git checkout v2.6.16
	... i.e. check whether it builds
	$ git checkout v2.6.17
	... test this one
	$ git checkout v2.6.18
	... change something
	$ git commit
	error: can't commit.  not on any branch.
	use "git commit -b <new-branch-name>" to commit into a new one.
	$ git commit -b my-v2.6.18