Re: Hey - A Conceptual Simplication....

From: Jan Krüger <jk@jk.gs>
Date: Nov 18, 2009, 13:25 UTC
Message-ID: <20091118142512.1313744e@perceptron>
In-Reply-To: <005a01ca684e$71a1d710$54e58530$@com>

Hi,

Show 7 quoted lines

> 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.

yet even now, people routinely add huge amounts of files they didn't actually want to add, and then have to expend a huge amount of effort to get them out of the history again (particularly if that history has already been published).

What you are describing is a workflow that is even fuller of potential for wrong turns than the current standard workflow is. If simplicity leads to a greater potential for errors, how is it a good thing?

This kind of workflow actually involves more work for the user. She now has to meticulously maintain an accurate list of ignore patterns, particularly because of this:

> 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.

So if I forget to add a certain pattern, my file is lost forever? Uhh...

> This suggestion is in recognition of the fact that if you
> are not versioning the file, it is typically trash

Just how typical is that, though? I wouldn't want to be the one to judge that.

In light of my concerns, I oppose adding your suggestions to the official CLI of git and I suggest that you create your own commands to enable this kind of workflow. For example:

git config --global alias.commitx '!git add . && git commit' git config --global alias.checkoutx '!git clean && git checkout'

Jan