Re: [RFC variant 2 of 2] "needs update" considered harmful

> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 12:48:21AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> "git update-index --refresh", "git reset" and "git add --refresh" have
>> reported paths that have local modifications as "needs update" since the
>> beginning of git.
>>
>> Although this is logically correct in that you need to update the index at
>> that path before you can commit that change, it is now becoming more and
>> more clear, especially with the continuous push for user friendliness
>> since 1.5.0 series, that the message is suboptimal.  After all, the change
>> may be something the user might want to get rid of, and "updating" would
>> be absolutely a wrong thing to do if that is the case.
>>
>> I prepared two alternatives to solve this.  Both aim to reword the message
>> to more neutral "locally modified".
>>
>> This patch is a more straightforward variant that changes the message not
>> only for Porcelain commands ("add" and "reset") but also changes the
>> output from the plumbing command "update-index".
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
>
> I believe this is a good thing. Scripts need to be modified for the