Re: [PATCH,RFC 1/2] Make the list of common commands more exclusive

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 12, 2007, 02:21 UTC
Message-ID: <7vzlxk8apz.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1194829077-14320-1-git-send-email-tytso@mit.edu>

Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> writes:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Remove apply, archive, cherry-pick, prune, revert, and show-branch, so
> "git help" is less intimidating.
>
> Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
>
> -apply
> -archive
> -prune
> -revert
> -show-branch

I am fine with this list, perhaps except apply.

On the other hand, if you are shooting *really* for the absolute minimum set for the beginners, I would kill rm and possibly mv) in addition to your list:

 - git-rm is always easier to do with "rm -fr file-or-dir",
   followed by "git commit -a".  Of course "git rm --cached" and
   partial commits that contain removal cannot be emulated
   easily this way, but this is an alternative suggestion to aim
   for *real* beginners who do not use the index.

 - git-mv is on my list for the same reason as "rm", but it is a
   bit more cumbersome if you want to move a directory, because
   "mv old new && git add new" would not work for people without
   a correctly set-up .gitignore (and if we are talking about
   beginners, we should expect user's .gitignore is borked).

I have a bit of reservation about revert, but I'd imagine we could kill it, and also fetch, pull and push, if you are shooting for *real* beginners who work alone. I think the only valid justification to drop "revert" from the list is to assume that the audience do not interact with the outside world, and dropping fetch/pull/push from the list is in line with that.