Re: [PATCHv2 3/3] git-add: rename -u to -a

Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:

I dont care very much myself, but if you consider "git add ." as a potentially destructive operation (discards changes that may be precious in the index), then it's good that "git add" is a no-op.

Many beginners will try commands expecting to get a help message or a hint on how to use it when ran without argument (principle of least surprise)

Like:

$ ls file1 file2 => oh, so "ls" lists files. $ rm rm: missing operand Try `rm --help' for more information. => ok, so rm needs more operands

A user typing "git add" just "to see what happens" may be disapointed to have all its files added. In particular since "git add" is silent by default, hence

# let's see what happens ... $ git add $ # ok, nothing happened ... # continue hacking without noticing that a bunch of files have been added.

Mercurial has taken the other way, making "hg add" add everything by default, and some users do complain:

http://osdir.com/ml/version-control.mercurial.general/2007-08/msg00316.html

If you change this for Git, you'll have people complaining about backward compatibility plus people complaining about least surprise :-(

Today, "git add ." adds new content in tracked files, and new files, but doesn't notice files deletions. Did I miss something, or is there no way to do that with your proposal?