Re: [PATCH 0/2] Making "git commit" to mean "git commit -a".

From: Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>
Date: Nov 30, 2006, 16:40 UTC
Message-ID: <20061130164046.GB17715@thunk.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0611300749560.3513@woody.osdl.org>

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 07:58:09AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:

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> So I wanted to make it clear that I never have that situation, because I 
> never leave the index "dirty". I agree that there is nothing odd about it, 
> but I think that people who don't actively use the index (or don't use git 
> at all, and just worry about it) see it as a kind of separate entity with 
> a life all its own.

Well, sure, because the documentation *talks* about it as a separate entity all its own. Just look at the man page for git-diff as a great example of this, or the ascii art diagram of the index. It is all technically _correct_, but it is scary as all heck.

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> I can see that if you think the index is likely to be out of kilter with 
> HEAD, you'd always worry about "ok, so maybe the diff I get from 'git 
> diff' isn't the _true_ diff, so now I have to do _both_ 'git diff' and 
> 'git diff HEAD' to make sure I know what's up".
> 
> I just wanted to clarify that that is never the case for me, and I doubt 
> anybody else really does it either.

But then why is the default for "git commit" to commit the index, if the index is almost == HEAD? And why is git-update-index given such prominence in the documentation?

> In other words, the fact that the index _normally_ matches the HEAD may be 
> obvious, but it's also important - it's important to allay fears from 
> non-index users about it being somehow scary and confusing. It's not.

If everyone agrees with this, I think it would be easier to make changes to the documentation and maybe some UI tweaks about what the default might be.

One suggestion is that perhaps a mode where warns users when index != HEAD for certain critical commands might not be a bad thing. That might give users that are just graduating beyond novice git usage, and just starting to become aware of the index, reassurance because if they *don't* see the warning message, they can rest assured that they don't have to do both "git diff" and "git diff HEAD", for example.