Re: Call Me Gitless

From: Alexander E Genaud <alex@genaud.net>
Date: Aug 19, 2008, 10:09 UTC
Message-ID: <ee521d6f0808190309n7f0114a6q2e8113238cb2142b@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <vpqk5edid2y.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>

Show 10 quoted lines

>> A single term for cache and index should be decided upon.
>
> +1 on this.
>
> I find "staging area" the most explicit wording for users, but I say
> that as a non-native english speaker.
>
> Unfortunately, it's not only a matter of documentation. Renaming "git
> diff --cached" to "git diff --staged" would cause backward
> compatibility problems for example.

Actually, I don't even think of the --cached argument as a flag but as a reference. Consider INDEX and WORKSPACE as references:

git diff INDEX HEAD --name-status
  -- display staged files (git diff --cached)

git diff INDEX WORKSPACE --name-status
  -- display unstaged changes (git diff)

git diff HEAD WORKSPACE --name-status
  -- display changes since last commit (git diff HEAD)

Of course, --cached is not synonymous with INDEX in my example above, thus despite getting use to it, default behavior seems chaotic to me. Git-diff HEAD assumes the unspecified reference is WORKSPACE, while git-diff --cached assumes the unspecified reference is HEAD. Git-diff with no argument assumes the unspecified references as INDEX and WORKSPACE. If I'm mistaken, it might just prove the point. ;-)

Cheers, Alex

-- 
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