Re: Terminology question: "tracking" branches

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Oct 27, 2008, 18:44 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0810271654530.22125@pacific.mpi-cbg.de.mpi-cbg.de>
In-Reply-To: <4905E1B0.8040601@xiplink.com>

Hi,

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Marc Branchaud wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Michael J Gruber wrote:
> > 
> > [adjective to be found] branch: A local branch which is set up to pull 
> > or rebase automatically from a tracking branch. Used for local 
> > modifications to remote branches. [I'm tempted to use local tracking 
> > branch here, but that would just add to the confusion.]
> 
> I say there's no need for an adjective here, as this is just a plain old
> branch that git-branch creates by default (right?).

I agree; I do not think that you need an adjective here.

I'd also recommend thinking about the branches as "local" and "remote". Not anything with "tracking" or "trailing" or somesuch. When you really look at it from the non-technical view point, even the branches you have in refs/remotes/*/ are the remote branches; the fact that you have a local cached version of them is just a minor implementation detail.

And as to the "--track" thing? I'd not make that big a deal out of it. At most, I'd say that a certain local branch happens to follow a certain remote branch, but that can change over time, right? (Just change branch.<name>.merge...)

Ciao, Dscho