Re: [FAQ?] Rationale for git's way to manage the index

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: May 6, 2007, 23:51 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0705070146140.4167@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <vpqbqgxak1i.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>

Hi,

On Sun, 6 May 2007, Matthieu Moy wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:
> 
> >  - You fundamentally cannot do it any other way.
> >
> >    Not doing it the way git does it (point to the content) means that the 
> >    index-replacement has to point to something else, namely a "file ID". 
> 
> Well, git's index still tells more than "the content FOOBAR exists,
> somewhere". It also "contains", if not "points to", the file name.

As you pointed out yourself, the index _has_ an idea of the content of that file. So, arguably, it does not point to _that_ file, but rather to that file _with a certain content_.

Show 7 quoted lines

> > What's so hard with adding that "-a" to "git commit"? You don't even need 
> > it on the status line, the status is relevant and understandable (and 
> > actually tells you more) even without it.
> 
> Off course, I don't have strong argument against it. The biggest
> annoyance is that my fingers are used to "commit -m message", and now
> type "commit -a message", but ...

Just another reason to hate CVS. Because it trained people to do that. If it was not for the training by CVS, I would have strongly opposed to the introduction of the "-m" switch to commit. It _encourages_ bad commit messages.

Now, with Git I usually let git-commit start up the editor. Because then I am actually encouraged to make up my mind, and put down a meaningful message, which might not only help _others_ to understand why I did it, and how, but also _myself_ (after a few months).

> The reason why I'm posting this is that I was wondering whether "commit 
> -a" not being the default was supposed to be a message like "you 
> shouln't use it too often".

IMHO yes, that is the message.

In addition to being nice to people used to the behaviour of "git commit" _without_ other arguments.

Ciao, Dscho