Re: Usability of git stash

From: Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil>
Date: Oct 16, 2008, 15:22 UTC
Message-ID: <vCcONcOJu3QKQyRgPdT5Dws3F2P25RNAFOgM5GX6FWWKJe40papCRw@cipher.nrlssc.navy.mil>
In-Reply-To: <86vdvsg4up.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz>

David Kastrup wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil> writes:
> 
>> Anders Melchiorsen wrote:
>>
>>> When trying to recover from that scenario, I do "git stash apply" as
>>> recommended by the "git stash" output. Now I still lost my index
>>> state, all changes are unstaged.
>> See the documentation, apply has a '--index' option.
> 
> Still, the shoot-yourself-in-the-foot potential is quite larger than
> appropriate for what is mostly workflow porcelaine.  It is even larger
> than appropriate for plumbing IMHO.

I think it is excessive to call the action taken by 'git stash', when it is unwanted, "shoot[ing]-yourself-in-the-foot". More like stub-your-toe.

In exchange for allowing new users to stub their toe on new commands, the work flow of more experienced users is made a little easier.

Show 5 quoted lines

> I mean, even misspellings like
> git stash lisp
>
> cause action that is not easily reversible, and the given help output is
> misleading with regard to index state.

$ git stash lisp
Usage: git stash list [<options>]
   or: git stash (show | drop | pop ) [<stash>]
   or: git stash apply [--index] [<stash>]
   or: git stash branch <branchname> [<stash>]
   or: git stash [save [--keep-index] [<message>]]
   or: git stash clear

Maybe you are referring to the long since changed behavior where 'git stash' == 'git stash save' and so "lisp" in your example would have been taken as a stash description. This behavior existed for less than 6 months, and has been changed now for over 10 months.

-brandon