Re: pull into dirty working tree

Junio C Hamano wrote:

Presumably it's a good model because it's easier, more productive, more predictable, more reliable, or some combination of those things; that's the incentive. If it's none of those things for a given developer, then maybe it's not in fact a better model for them.

Of course, even if it is better for them, some people will never move -- but those are the people who won't willingly move to git anyway unless the bad model is supported. There are enough of them out there that people who *do* want to use the good model, but have to work in an environment where they're outnumbered by those other folks, find they can't sell the organization on git because it forces a change in work style on people who aren't interested in changing their work styles. (Not a purely hypothetical statement, sadly.)

You can view this in terms of being a leg up for people who *do* want to use git, but are in environments where they are unable to convince or force everyone else to adopt git-style workflows. I think it's telling that almost all the discussions about this kind of feature are of the form, "I'm trying to convince my team to use git, and they find it no good because of X." It's the person trying to sell git to the group, presumably so they can use it themselves without having to go through a CVS or Subversion or p4 gateway, that this stuff really helps. That the rest of the team will benefit down the road too is nice but probably not the immediate selfish personal goal of the people who are asking for this kind of feature.

-Steve