Re: [PATCH] git-revert is one of the most misunderstood command in git, help users out.

From: Steven Grimm <koreth@midwinter.com>
Date: Nov 5, 2007, 19:28 UTC
Message-ID: <CD2E6759-9E7E-41E6-8B58-AB6CA9604111@midwinter.com>
In-Reply-To: <1194289301-7800-1-git-send-email-madcoder@debian.org>

On Nov 5, 2007, at 11:01 AM, Pierre Habouzit wrote:

> When git-revert has a file argument then redirect the user to what he
> probably meant.

That's a big improvement. Basically everyone I show git to gets "revert" wrong at first.

> +			die("Cannot find commit '%s', did you meant: "
> +				"git checkout HEAD -- '%s'", arg, arg);

But that suggested command is not going to convince anyone they were wrong about git being hard to learn. I wonder if instead of saying, "I know what you meant, but I'm going to make you type a different command," we should make git revert just do what the user meant.

There is already precedent for that kind of mixed-mode UI:

git checkout my-branch vs. git checkout my/source/file.c

-Steve