Re: [PATCH 3/3] Teach "git branch" about --new-workdir

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jul 22, 2007, 23:37 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0707230033310.14781@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <f80mbc$si1$1@sea.gmane.org>

Hi,

[re Cc'ed Julian]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> Julian Phillips wrote:
> 
> > I just think that to a user it feels like a checkout operation ... and 
> > that would less confusing as an option to checkout. ?Trying to explain 
> > that branch just creates a new branch, unless you give this option 
> > then it creates a working copy over there seems more compilcated than 
> > saying the checkout updates/creates this working copy, unless you use 
> > this option to create one over there.
> 
> IMVHO git-checkout is characterized that it changes _current_ working 
> directory.

Actually, the name suggests that the important action is "checkout", so I agree with Julian here.

> But having this in git-checkout would mean that you can create new 
> workdir for _existing_ branch. git-branch is rather (except from 
> listing) for creating new branches.

Note that it is possible to checkout the current branch with "git checkout HEAD". Indeed, you can get the same effect with "git checkout -f HEAD" as with "git reset --hard" AFAIK.

> It is a fact that functionalities of git-checkout (-b) and git-branch
> (--new-work-dir) intersect a bit.

Yes, I pointed that out, too. But we're not Python, so we do not have to pretend that it is a bad thing to have several way to do the same. Which allows us better to cater for user's expectations.

Ciao, Dscho