Re: [PATCH 2/7] [doc] git-merge: link to new merge conflicts guide

From: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Date: Oct 2, 2026, 18:53 UTC
Message-ID: <7861e492-6fa4-4768-afdd-65cd346b85be@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqh5j4vvor.fsf@gitster.g>

Show 9 quoted lines

>>     WHAT IS A MERGE CONFLICT?
>>     -------------------------
>>
>>     When Git merges two commits together, it looks at the changes that
>>     each side has made and combines those changes. For example, if one side
>>     edited lines 1-5 of `hello.py` and the other side edited lines 20-25 of
>>     `hello.py`, then it can easily combine them.
>
> Some immediate reactions.

Thanks, incorporated a few of these ("it marks them as conflicted", "since there's no overlap", "the same file")

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>>     But if both sides edited overlapping lines of the same file (for example
>>     one side edited lines 1-5 and the other edited lines 3-6), Git will
>>     not try to guess how to combine those changes. This is called a "merge
>>     conflict".
>
>  - "cannot guess" would be more direct than "will not try to guess".

The way I think about it as a user is that Git takes an intentionally conservative approach and I appreciate the conservatism. Compared to a more aggressive syntax-aware merge system like `mergiraf` which has done merges I don't agree with.