Re: DWIM "git checkout frotz" to "git checkout -b frotz origin/frotz"

From: Clemens Buchacher <drizzd@aon.at>
Date: Jun 6, 2010, 17:32 UTC
Message-ID: <20100606173233.GA11041@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTinTI3XaE6P_WZ_k56fgI4LNOLSalv_1GlVZNO7n@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 09:59:08AM -0700, Jacob Helwig wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 09:55, Clemens Buchacher <drizzd@aon.at> wrote:
> >
> > I argue that people are more likely to be surprised and confused by
> > this feature rather than being accustomed to it already. I am also
> > waiting to hear from someone who actively uses this feature.
> >
> 
> I am someone that "actively" uses this feature.  I will often have
> repositories that I use on multiple machines, and will forget which
> remote branches I have local tracking branches for, on which machines.
>  I'll end up just doing `git checkout $random-branch`, thinking I'm on
> one of the machines where I've already setup the local branch, and
> find it quite handy that Git _does_ DWIM.

I see. But would it be so terrible to have to type "git checkout -t origin/branch" instead?

Also, isn't this more like "foretell what I really want" rather than "do what it means"? Who would guess that "git checkout $branch" means "create $branch tracking <random-remote>/$branch"?

And this is exactly _why_ it can be marginally useful if the foretelling is correct, but all the more confusing if it's not.