From: Jeff King Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:43:17 GMT Subject: Re: Consistent terminology: cached/staged/index Message-ID: <20110227084317.GB3356@sigill.intra.peff.net> In-Reply-To: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 11:09:14PM +0200, Felipe Contreras wrote: > On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 1:19 AM, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > > When people talk about the staging area I tend to get confused.  I > > think there's an idea that because it sounds more concrete, there is > > less to explain --- or maybe I am just wired the wrong way. > > I don't like the phrase "staging area". A "stage" already has an area. > You put things on the stage. Sometimes there are multiple stages. As a native English speaker, this makes no sense to me. A stage as a noun is either: 1. a raised platform where you give performances 2. a phase that some process goes through (e.g., "the early stages of Alzheimer's disease") Whereas the term "staging area" is a stopping point on a journey for collecting and organizing items. I couldn't find a definite etymology online, but it seems to be military in origin (e.g., you would send all your tanks to a staging area, then once assembled and organized, begin your attack). You can't just call it "staging", which is not a noun, and the term "stage" is not a synonym. "Staging area" has a very particular meaning. So the term "staging area" makes perfect sense to me; it is where we collect changes to make a commit. I am willing to accept that does not to others (native English speakers or no), and that we may need to come up with a better term. But I think just calling it "the stage" is even worse; it loses the concept that it is a place for collecting and organizing. -Peff