Re: [RFC] Delete current branch
- From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Date
- Jul 19, 2013, 16:48 UTC
- Message-ID
- <7vppuewl6h.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
- In-Reply-To
- <CALkWK0m-q=Aoof62zhXnUYsJ7PQZwTLbQ50BUEmufVO4gtWNUA@mail.gmail.com>
Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:
Show 9 quoted lines
> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Did you know that the general way to spell the branch previously you
>> were on is "@{-1}" and "checkout -" is an ugly special case that is
>> possible only because "checkout" does not happen to take a "-" as a
>> valid argument that means something else (like the more usual "read
>> from standard input")?
>
> I disagree that it is ugly: it's a very commonly used shortcut that I
> like.It does not matter if you like it or not ;-).
I do agree that "checkout -" is 100% more pleasing to the eye than "checkout @{-1}" from visual "prettyness" point of view.
But there is a very commonly accepted long tradition for "-" to mean "read from the standard input", so we cannot reuse it to mean "the branch I was previously on" for every command without first making sure the command will never want to use "-" for the other common purpose.
That limits the context we could use "-" and we cannot consistently use it everywhere. I find _that_ ugly from the "design cleanliness" point of view.