Re: [PATCH/RFC] builtin-checkout: suggest creating local branch when appropriate to do so

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Oct 14, 2009, 04:31 UTC
Message-ID: <20091014043150.GB28795@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0910140117280.4985@pacific.mpi-cbg.de>

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 01:22:26AM +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> At some point, trying to educate the user is not helpful but annoying.  If 
> Git already knows what I want, why does it not do it already?  _That_ is 
> the question I already hear in my ears.

I am not entirely convinced that the suggested behaviors will result in that user response, or a different one (like "why does git keep giving me bad advice?"). Which is why I suggested data collection.

Show 6 quoted lines

> > So doing step (1) would be a way of collecting some of that data (will 
> > users say "stupid git, if you knew what I wanted, why didn't you just do 
> > it?" or "stupid git, your suggestion is just confusing me!").
> 
> I disagree.  It is not about collecting data.  We will not get any 
> feedback from the affected people.  You know that, I know that.

I don't agree. You are already talking about users complaining about git's interface. Isn't that feedback? How do you hear those complaints now?

I don't think they will come on the list and talk about it, but if we release a version of git that has differing behavior and give it some time to be used in the wild, we _will_ get feedback in the form of blogs, complaints on other lists, word-of-mouth, etc.

Now maybe that is not a good idea in this instance, because that sort of feedback may take several versions to appear, and we are talking about a potential timetable of v1.7.0, which is probalby only two versions away.

-Peff