From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@fluxnic.net>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:40:39 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] checkout: warn about 'branch name' rather than 'local branch'
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.1001291621020.1681@xanadu.home>
In-Reply-To: <1264799342-11093-1-git-send-email-srabbelier@gmail.com>

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:

> These days, you can say "git checkout topic" to automagically create
> a local "topic" branch that forks from "origin/topic" remote tracking
> branch when you have one, thanks to Dscho's UI improvement ideas. As
> such it is more appropriate to say that the user is checking out
> something that is not a branch name, rather than saying it is not a
> 'local branch'.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>

For the record, I'm providing a NAK.  First I don't agree with the UI 
"improvement" if there is no way to check out a remote branch without 
creating soon-to-be-stall local branches with the same name.

Next, the message can be made yet more clear and give the user more of a 
hint with what is going on.  Something like:

	"%s is not a local branch head: creating a detached HEAD\n"

plus the remaining clue lines.  This way people will have a much greater 
chance of understanding what state they're in, and a simple Google 
search for detached HEAD gives you the Git manual page with the needed 
info.


Nicolas