Re: No "pull" in git gui?

From: Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
Date: Sep 26, 2008, 14:47 UTC
Message-ID: <48DCF5F5.3040409@op5.se>
In-Reply-To: <588192970809260737i46ce0c30y191e29156bbf6396@mail.gmail.com>

Steve Hoelzer wrote:

> Why isn't there a pull command in git gui's remote menu? Am I supposed
> to fetch and then merge? Is that preferred over pull for some reason?
>

Yes, it is. Blind "git pull" without knowing what you're going to fetch is not recommended, because it tends to create tons and tons of "useless" merges, where all commits are on one branch and there's no clear distinction between them. Such merges are useless because you'd be better off with a linearized history (bisection turns out slightly easier, fe).

"git pull" is primarily intended for
* people like Linus, who merge in a lot of other people's code.
* bleeding-edge *users* that just want the latest and greatest.
* "vcs = cvs" users, that never care about history

For all other workflows I've ever encountered, doing "git pull"
blindly always ends up being worse than
* developing on topic-branches and merging those when ready.
* doing 'git pull --rebase', to linearize a series of small
  fixes before pushing them back up.
* 'git fetch' + manually inspect new code + 'git merge'.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231