Re: EasyGit Integration

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 12, 2009, 20:57 UTC
Message-ID: <94a0d4530906121357h63723278i7663c25707d3c754@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <200906110242.57475.jnareb@gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Jakub Narebski<jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 38 quoted lines

> On Thu, 11 June 2009, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Jakub Narebski<jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Scott Chacon <schacon@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 4:04 PM, Linus
>>>> Torvalds<torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> IOW, both would be "if you give it a commit, it acts at a commit level",
>>>>> and "if you give it pathnames, it acts on a pathname level".
>>>>>
>>>>> That is totally obvious, and not in the least confusing. They are two
>>>>> different things, but at the same time, there is no question about which
>>>>> is which.
>>>>>
>>>>>> In my mind these are 2 completely different commands.
>>>>>
>>>>> They are two different things, but they both make sense within the
>>>>> _context_.
>>>>>
>>>>> Only earthworms and FOX news have no concept of "in context". So it does
>>>>> make sense to say "git checkout filename" (and expect it to check out that
>>>>> _filename_ - surprise surprise), and also say "git checkout branch" (and
>>>>> expect it to check out that branch - again, big surprise).
>>>>
>>>> The problem here is that you're using 'check out' in your descriptions
>>>> of the expectations to mean two different things.  One means 'switch
>>>> branches' and the other means 'extract content'.
>>>
>>> In both cases it means getting something out of repository (checking
>>> out) and into working area.
>>
>> 'git reset' also gets something out of the repository and into the
>> working area, that's not reason enough to put them under the same
>> 'checkout' command, is it?
>
> Nope. 'git reset' resets something to the state in repository (to given
> commit).  The fact that some combination of options for 'git reset' gives
> the same result as some specific combination of options of 'git checkout'
> means only that one can arrive at some destination in two different ways.

You can describe what 'git reset' does in many ways, but in the process it's still getting something out of the repository and into the working directory, does it not? 'git checkout <commitish>' and 'git checkout <commitish> -- <path>' also do that.

Is that relevant? No. What is relevant is the final action the user is expecting to achieve.

Therefore, the fact that 'git checkout <commitish>' modifies the working directory is irrelevant, it's still doing an extra step; update HEAD, and that final action is what is important for this particular command; it switches to another commitish.

-- 
Felipe Contreras