Re: [RFC/PATCH] git push usability improvements and default change

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 10, 2009, 00:19 UTC
Message-ID: <7v7i2ydyb3.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vfxhmdyvn.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

>    - Even if the answer to the above question is "no", are there other
>      commands that we currently do not allow a quick shorthand to mean
>      "the default thing", but would benefit from having one?  If so, how
>      good does it look to use '-' as such a short-hand?

I need " for these other commands" before the question mark at the end of this sentence.

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>      In other words, is it safe to establish a precedent to use '-' to
>      denote "the default thing"?  Would we later regret, saying that
>      "'git-frotz command would benefit from a short-hand notation for 'the
>      default thing', but - is already taken -- it means send the output to
>      the stdout"?

I need ", or something like that" before the question mark at the end of this sentence.

Show 5 quoted lines

>    - Do we use a short-hand '-' to mean something entirely different in
>      the UI, making this new use of '-' to mean the default confusing?
>
>      I think '-' for checkout means "the previous one", which already
>      answers this question somewhat.

I am wondering if we can handle this by DWIMming the command line arguments better. For example, in all of these:

	$ git push HEAD
        $ git push :
        $ git push master

when "HEAD", ":", or "master" can only be refspec, we know that the user said "I do not bother saying which repository to --- you know what I mean." It would be natural to DWIM it to "the default remote" without even having to use your '-' notation.