Re: [PATCH] Stop telling users we are 'defaulting to local storage area'.

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

[...]

Before everybody starts believing everybody agrees with this I'll have to throw a tile in the pond.

I really don't think this is a good rule.

NOte that I'm not against commands that are silent by default. I really think that git-add should remain silent on success by default when successful.

But the rule of thumb should be about the importance of the action performed by the command. git-add is a less important command than git-init-db or git-commit _conceptually_. You can do multiple git-add in whatever order, even repeatedly, and it won't change the outcome. It is "conceptually lightweight". But git-init-db is really important. Without it you just can't do anything. It should give the user the impression that something did actually happen, especially since this is the git comand any new git user is most likely to use first. Saying back "git repository initialized" tells the user "OK you can start now". Saying nothing might just leave the user wondering if everything is actually fine.