Re: master^ is not a local branch -- huh?!?

> On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 05:12:42PM -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> > In article <7vk4uwmp95.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>,
> >  Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Ron Garret <ron1@flownet.com> writes:
> > > 
> > > > The manual specifically contradicts you, so either you are wrong or the 
> > > > manual is wrong.
> > > 
> > > In case you haven't noticed, Pasky is one of the old timers and he knows 
> > > a
> > > thing or two about the git's world model.
> > 
> > My intent was not to diss Pasky, it was just to point out a disconnect 
> > between what he was saying and what the manual says.  It's quite 
> > possible that the manual is wrong or out of date or just misleading.  
> > But it says what it says.
> > 
> > > And I do not see a contradiction in what the manual describes and "a
> > > branch is a named pointer to a commit" (although "named" can probably be
> > > omitted as "unnamed pointer" is not useful at the UI level).
> > 
> > But that's not what the manual says.  The manual says, "When we need to 
> > be precise, we will use the word "branch" to mean a line of 
> > development..."  Those are the first words in the section entitled 
> > "Understanding history: What is a branch?"  It certainly appears to the 
> > untrained eye that that is intended to be the definition of a branch.
> 
> My memory is that I'd seen the word "branch" used for both meanings (a
> linear piece of history, and a ref under ref/heads/), so figured we
> needed terms for both.
> 
> But then I didn't really use that distinction anywhere.  On a quick skim
> the only instance I can see of the first sense is in
> http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git-core/docs/user-manual.html#counting-com
> mits-on-a-branch,
> which could probably be reworded.
> 
> It still may be worth acknowledging the confusion; e.g., something like:
> 
> 	In the above diagram, "A", "B", and "master" are all references
> 	to a point in history.  We call all three "branches".
> 
> 	Informally, the word "branch" is sometimes also used to the
> 	entire line of development leading up to one of these points,
> 	or, more generally, to any individual line of development.  But
> 	when speaking about git, a "branch" (or "branch head") will
> 	always be a reference to a point in history, and in particular a
> 	reference which may be advanced to new commits by future
> 	development.
> 
> Eh, I don't know if that's helpful; maybe that section could just be
> deleted.  Or replaced by a more general discusion of the ref/ namespace.