Re: [PATCH v2] git-clone: Add option --branch to override initial branch

From: Tor Arne Vestbø <torarnv@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 3, 2009, 16:47 UTC
Message-ID: <49AD5F0D.8000700@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0903031004570.6399@intel-tinevez-2-302>

Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> Leaving unnecessary initialization and funny indentation aside for a 
> moment,

I do appreciate the feedback though. C is not my primary language, and I'm happy to learn from my mistakes :-)

> Keep in mind: your change (as every change) bears the potential to 
> introduce bugs and to complicate the user interface.  The change must be 
> worth those risks.

I fully understand. Here is my rationale for why it's worth the risk:

Imagine you have a project called Foo, which has active development on the 'master' branch, and not quite so active development on the more stable version branch '1.6' (which v1.6.0 and v1.6.1 was tagged from).

Now, you want to put up info on the project web page / wiki on how to contribute to project Foo. This information is for new contributors -- who may be unfamiliar with git and it's inner workings. You write:

"To get started contributing to project Foo, please clone using:

   $ git clone git://git.foo.com/project.git

This looks nice and inviting.

You also want to provide instructions for those who would like to contribute to the more stable branch of project Foo, 1.6:

"If you would like to contribute to the stable 1.6 branch, do:

   $ git clone -n git://git.foo.com/project.git
   $ cd project
   $ git checkout -t origin/1.6
   $ git branch -D master

Which is not so nice and inviting. At least not compared to:

"If you would like to contribute to the stable 1.6 branch, do:

   $ git clone git://git.foo.com/project.git --branch 1.6

Remember these are new contributors, unfamiliar with git. Presenting them with a list of four commands that have to be run to get started (commands which incidentally also are the first-ones new users mix up), is not ideal. "What does -n do?", "What does -t do?", "What's a tracking branch?", "Origin? What's that?", "What does -D do?", "Delete?! Will I delete the main development line!?", etc.. :)

Also, remember that these commands are not something that can be scripted or put into an alias, because these users have not cloned anything yet.

I know Subversions is perhaps not the best ideal, but to contrast:

   $ svn import http://svn.foo.bar/project/trunk
   $ svn import http://svn.foo.bar/project/branches/1.6

Easy to get to a different branch without having to dive into the full feature set of the SCM.

So, to conclude, I see this as a usability-feature of git-clone, which outweighs the possible risk of introducing new bugs. It's not a feature I will personally use that often, but it's one that I think new users will appreciate.

Tor Arne