From: Michael Witten Date: Fri, 04 May 2012 19:22:27 GMT Subject: Re: Newbie grief Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <4FA418A7.2050100@palm.com> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 5:57 PM, Rich Pixley wrote: > On 5/3/12 21:35 , Michael Witten wrote: >> >> On Thu, 3 May 2012 20:13:01 -0700, Nathan Gray wrote: >> >>> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 6:01 PM, Illia Bobyr  wrote: >>>> >>>> It is just a "non-fast forward" move of a branch tip.  This term >>>> describes what happens precisely :) >>>> >>>> It is true, that the term is non obvious to the new comers. >>>> One may google and get an explanation of the error pretty quickly. >>>> First hit for "git non fast forward error" gives an explanation from a >>>> new comer point of view for the simplest case. >>> >>> I just led a team of reasonably bright people through a transition >>> from SVN to git.  Not one of them understood this message.  Every one >>> of them thought something was broken.  This is a very common >>> occurrence, so a short, simple message without jargon for this error >>> would be a big, big win. >> >> Well, what is your suggestion? >> >> Nobody in this thread has yet provided an explicit improvement because >> the actual complaint is that the vast majority of people (including >> supposed "professionals") don't RTFM; it never even occurs to them! >> >> Let's look at the message in question: >> >>   To $uri_for_central_repo >>    ! [rejected]        HEAD ->  feature_0 (non-fast-forward) >>   error: failed to push some refs to '$uri_for_central_repo' >>   To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were >> rejected >>   Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing again.  See >> the >>   'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details. >> >> Not only does this already spoonfeed the reader with a suggested >> command for getting back on track (i.e., 'git pull'), but it also >> explicitly points out the relevant documentation and HOW to gain >> immediate access to that information from the command line! > > Let's take it line by line. > > "Rejected - mumble" - the tool did not do what you asked. > "error: failed to mumble"  - your data is corrupt. > "To prevent you mumble mumble" - you're not allowed to do what you want > > I stopped reading there. You are not somebody worth helping. > I'm not saying this is a correct interpretation.  I'm offering it as a data > point from a sophisticated, although new, user. LOL