Re: [BUG] - "git commit --amend" commits, when exiting the editor with no changes written

From: Eugene Sajine <euguess@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 3, 2010, 19:27 UTC
Message-ID: <76c5b8581002031127m31c39dbbkc7c31d19e4d5874@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <32541b131002031057q866d3q95d0e80a0adf6c52@mail.gmail.com>

> Of course, in such editors you could just hit "space; backspace" and
> then save.  Sounds annoying?  Well, so does deleting all the lines in
> the commit message just to make it *not* amend.

That was exactly the starting point of my thoughts.Currently it forces user to be explicit if he wants to cancel the operation (rebase -i, or amend), instead of forcing user to be explicit to proceed.

Show 6 quoted lines

>
> To reiterate what I said earlier: the mtime idea isn't even
> automatically a bad one.  It's about as good as what currently exists,
> and the resulting rule (file content or mtime must be modified) is
> just as consistent as the current rule (file must be nonempty).  It's
> also arguably easier for new users to understand.

OK. Agree on that.

>
> But you can't just blindly change the system to always work in a
> different way.  People depend on the current behaviour.

I understand that pretty well. My logic is that the most used command which is affecting the three is "git commit", therefore this command workflow is pretty natural for all users, but the workflow of commit --amend and rebase -i which are also affecting the three is inconsistent with commit. The user interaction is not the same.

> Jeff King's script is a pretty cute solution that lets you have it your way with
> no changes to git, though.

Thanks to Jeff, I'll try it.

>
> Of course, this does open up the question of how to do any global UI
> design at all if a decision made once gets locked in forever.

100% agree, there is such question.

> The reason git is hard for new users is that its UI is crazy and
> confusing, but a major reason it keeps gaining in popularity is that
> once you learn git, you stick with it, because you don't have to
> relearn it with every new version.

I just didn't realize that this can be such a drastic change for users as well as technical difficulties related to the emacs and similar editors.

Thanks, Eugene