Re: Re: Pull is Evil

From: W. Trevor King <wking@tremily.us>
Date: May 1, 2014, 17:56 UTC
Message-ID: <20140501175623.GY6227@odin.tremily.us>
In-Reply-To: <5362664C.8040907@xiplink.com>

On Thu, May 01, 2014 at 11:20:44AM -0400, Marc Branchaud wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On 14-05-01 05:46 AM, brian m. carlson wrote:
> >   git checkout maintenance-branch
> >   # Update our maintenance branch to the latest from the main repo.
> >   git pull --ff-only
> >   git pull --no-ff developer-remote topic-branch
> >   git push main-repo HEAD
> 
> …
> What's more, it seems to me that the only real advantage "git pull" provides
> here is a less typing compared to the non-pull equivalent:
> 
>   git fetch main-repo
>   git checkout main-repo/maintenance-branch
>   git fetch developer-remote
>   git merge --no-ff developer-remote/topic-branch
>   git push main-repo HEAD

You're missing Brian's fast-forward merge here.  It should be:

  git checkout maintenance-branch
  git fetch main-repo
  git merge --ff-only main-repo/maintenance-branch
  git fetch developer-remote
  …

> Sure, the non-pull approach makes use of Scary Branch Stuff (remotes
> and namespaces and detached HEADs -- oh my!).

No need for detached heads with Brian's local maintenance-branch. If you're teaching and just need folks merging the remote's HEAD, you can avoid namespaces and remotes entirely:

  git fetch git://example.net/main-repo.git
  git merge --ff-only FETCH_HEAD

although I doubt “the remote's HEAD” will be easier to explain than the namespaced, remote-tracking branches it replaces. It's certainly not worth the hassle of un-training FETCH_HEAD-merges later on ;).

Cheers, Trevor

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