Re: Newbie grief
- From
- Rich Pixley <rich.pixley@palm.com>
- Date
- May 4, 2012, 17:57 UTC
- Message-ID
- <4FA418A7.2050100@palm.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <1167779eee7d442b9db0eecb347d5516-mfwitten@gmail.com>
On 5/3/12 21:35 , Michael Witten wrote:
Show 34 quoted lines
> On Thu, 3 May 2012 20:13:01 -0700, Nathan Gray wrote: > >> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 6:01 PM, Illia Bobyr<ibobyr@blizzard.com> wrote: >>> It is just a "non-fast forward" move of a branch tip. This term >>> describes what happens precisely :) >>> >>> It is true, that the term is non obvious to the new comers. >>> One may google and get an explanation of the error pretty quickly. >>> First hit for "git non fast forward error" gives an explanation from a >>> new comer point of view for the simplest case. >> I just led a team of reasonably bright people through a transition >> from SVN to git. Not one of them understood this message. Every one >> of them thought something was broken. This is a very common >> occurrence, so a short, simple message without jargon for this error >> would be a big, big win. > Well, what is your suggestion? > > Nobody in this thread has yet provided an explicit improvement because > the actual complaint is that the vast majority of people (including > supposed "professionals") don't RTFM; it never even occurs to them! > > Let's look at the message in question: > > To $uri_for_central_repo > ! [rejected] HEAD -> feature_0 (non-fast-forward) > error: failed to push some refs to '$uri_for_central_repo' > To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected > Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing again. See the > 'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details. > > Not only does this already spoonfeed the reader with a suggested > command for getting back on track (i.e., 'git pull'), but it also > explicitly points out the relevant documentation and HOW to gain > immediate access to that information from the command line!
Let's take it line by line.
"Rejected - mumble" - the tool did not do what you asked. "error: failed to mumble" - your data is corrupt. "To prevent you mumble mumble" - you're not allowed to do what you want
I stopped reading there.
I'm not saying this is a correct interpretation. I'm offering it as a data point from a sophisticated, although new, user.
I've already offered a suggestion for rewording.
--rich