Re: Restore a single file in the index back to HEAD

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Nov 1, 2006, 23:39 UTC
Message-ID: <7vejsmzqh6.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <200611012309.42675.andyparkins@gmail.com>

Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> On Wednesday 2006, November 01 22:08, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> That's the "mechanical point of view only" description I was
>> afraid of having.  While I think I now see why they can be
>
> I must have a "mechanical point of view" brain.  I can't see
> any further than the gear wheels.

I care more about how something is useful than how faithfully something is implemented to the specification, which in turn means the specification needs to obviously indicate why it is useful.

A gadget may pick up a nearby baseball bat and jump up and down three times while holding it, but I do not want to have a description about the gadget that just says it is designed to do that. I want the the description to be obvious that everybody who reads it understands why that gadget is useful in what situations. That's why I feel the examples need to be extended.

But if I understand correctly, you are suggesting two different modes of operation, namely, with path limiters HEAD is not moved?

That is not something other git commands with pathspec does. Path limiters tell command to "do your thing only for paths that match these patterns, while you usually handle all paths; your behaviour shall otherwise not be any different in other aspects between the case you got no limiter and the case you got _all_ paths as limiters." So I do not think making path-only mode and pathless mode behave differently is a good idea from the UI point of view.