Re: [PATCH] Detached HEAD (experimental)

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Jan 10, 2007, 09:40 UTC
Message-ID: <7v3b6jcj8g.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <87zm8ryiyz.wl%cworth@cworth.org>

Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org> writes:

> Frankly, I don't understand why so much effort is being put toward
> allowing these "fragile commits" to be made in the first place. Why
> not require users to name the branch before creating any commits, just
> as has always been the case?

Then we would not be talking about detached HEAD at all. Why not require users to name the branch if they want to check out what they should not be able to in the first place?

Convenience.

Some features of git are about being convenient by allowing you to defer the decision. You can start mucking with the working tree files without knowing where it leads to and then from that point with the dirty working tree state decide to fork what you have started using "checkout -b newbranch". Even though you may have many dirty files in the working tree, you can selectively update index (especially with the patch subcommand of the interactive git-add) to prepare for commit -- you do not choose what to edit, but you defer the decision of what to include in the commit.