Re: Call Me Gitless

From: Alexander E Genaud <alex@genaud.net>
Date: Aug 19, 2008, 12:04 UTC
Message-ID: <ee521d6f0808190504u12be6195o71eb2f3a38f73a5f@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <660749.49882.qm@web27803.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

Hi Mark,

Thanks for pointing me to 'git-rm --cached'.

Show 6 quoted lines

> The changes are "cached" in the "Index". But I wouldn't name
> the "Index" really a "Cache" because it is a lot more. All
> comments for --cached in the manpages mention the Index
> mechanism. Additionally there is a more detailed introduction
> to the Index in section 7 (Git concepts) of the Git User's
> Manual

Funny the first example shows the contents of the index using a '--stage' flag.

$ git ls-files --stage ... Note that in older documentation you may see the index called the "current directory cache" or just the "cache".

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html#the-index

To my ear, the term cache is a volatile space used for optimization, while an index is a pointer or reference within a data structure. Neither are obvious concerns of an end user and using both terms is plain confusing. Staging implies something more tangible and useful to the end user.

Cheers, Alex

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