Re: [PATCH/RFC] builtin-checkout: suggest creating local branch when appropriate to do so

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Oct 13, 2009, 21:20 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0910132302380.4985@pacific.mpi-cbg.de>
In-Reply-To: <7vy6nfwssk.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Hi,

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 18 quoted lines

> Thomas Rast <trast@student.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> [this was probably quoted from Junio, Dscho doesn't have time to go back 
>  and check, but then, this was not specified in the quoted mail]
>
> >> #2. These are allowed only when unambiguous and there is no local branch yet.
> >> 
> >>  $ git checkout next               ;# ok
> >>  $ git checkout frotz              ;# ok (origin is not special)
> >>  $ git checkout nitfol             ;# not ok (ambiguous and origin is not special)
> >
> > I'm weakly leaning towards refusing all three, as the user should be
> > required to explicitly say a remote branch should be involved.
> >
> > (Weakly because there's also a certain DWIM advantage to 'git checkout
> > sometopic'...)
> 
> I thought this was the primary point of what Dscho has been advocating.

To be honest, I was not advocating anything except being more open to users' problems, because we _did_ grow a large user base, way beyond the Linux developers (whom we can always harrass and tell to RTFM).

Just to re-add my well-known stance: consistency is a good thing. So if things are ambiguous, we can be consistent in saying so and refusing to DWIM. And if things are _not_ ambiguous, we can be consistent in just DWIMming what the user most probably meant.

If the user just typed random things in the hope that it works, we cannot do anything about it anyway.

So in my opinion, we should DWIM "git checkout $X" to mean "git checkout -b $X refs/remotes/$REMOTE/$X" when there is no ref $X, refs/heads/$X and no other refs/remotes/$OTHER/$X.

Likewise "git checkout $REMOTE/$X".

But, in my opinion, if there is refs/heads/$X and refs/remotes/origin/$X, and the user says "git checkout origin/$X", we should tell the user that there are the options to checkout $X and origin/$X^0 (the latter only if the user really intended to detach her HEAD), but not try to DWIM anything.

IMHO it is obvious that Hannes' suggestion to fast-forward $X and check it out in said scenario has some benefits in certain situations, but dramatic downsides in others.

But I need to drive some very important point home in this thread: 1.7.0 was announced to break some old-time habits in favor of a better user-interface. We _need_ to use this opportunity fully.

Even if that means that a few fingers have to be retrained. Because retraining a few for the benefit of an easier time with the many others is Just Worth It.

Or in other words: logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Ciao, Dscho

P.S.: In case certain persons, ahem, think that I am applying the "Many Outweigh Few" principle to the time involved in top-posting and "forgetting" to cut quoted text to what is actually addressed: yes, you could not be more correct. And I no longer believe that this goes without saying.