From: Junio C Hamano Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 16:48:06 GMT Subject: Re: [RFC] Delete current branch Message-ID: <7vppuewl6h.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: Ramkumar Ramachandra writes: > 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.