From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:11:38 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] builtin/checkout: DWIM with -f -b
Message-ID: <20100620201137.GA8502@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vvd9dtt54.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 12:12:55PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> I think this is not "DWIM" but is "-f does not work with -b; fix it".
> 
> Will queue; thanks.

I am not sure it is fixing a bug. There are really two possible things
to be forced during checkout:

  1. throw away local changes

  2. overwrite an existing branch

Right now, "checkout -f" means just (1). This patch makes it _also_ mean
(2). Do we want to conflate those two cases?

In some sense, it is reasonable for "-f" to mean "force anything that
might be questionable". But I wonder if it pays to be a little more
conservative given that this is a safety valve we are talking about. The
user can of course still split their compound action into:

  git branch [-f] new_branch old_branch
  git checkout [-f] new_branch

Less convenient, but there is no ambiguity.

I dunno. I don't have a strong feeling on how it should be, but I think
it is more than a simple bug fix.

-Peff