Re: Make "git checkout" automatically update submodules?

> Git submodules seem to be a great fit for one of our repos.  The biggest
> pain point is that it's too easy to forget to update submodules.
>
> 1. I often forget since most repos don't need it.
> 2. Infrequent users of our repo almost never know to update submodules and
> end up coming to us with strange build errors.
> 3. Existing scripts that work with Git repos are usually not built to handle
> submodules.
>
> In the common case of the submodule content having no local edits, it would
> be nice if "git checkout" automatically updated submodules [1].  If there
> are local edits, it could error out (maybe override with
> "--ignore-modified-submodules" or something).
>
> I'm not a Git expert, though.  Is there a reason something like this isn't
> already implemented?  Maybe there's an existing write-up or mailing list
> thread I can read to get some background information?
>
> Thanks!
>
> [1] Our post-checkout procedure is:
>
>     git submodule sync
>     git submodule update --init
>     git submodule foreach --recursive \
>       'git submodule sync ; git submodule update --init'
>
> (Not sure if this is correct.  Different articles/blogs suggest a slightly
> different set of commands.)
>