Re: [PATCH 3/3] init: provide useful advice about init.defaultBranch

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 23, 2020, 02:07 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq4klgq10d.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqft51osnu.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

>> +static const char default_branch_name_advice[] = N_(
>> +"Using '%s' as the name for the initial branch. This name is subject\n"
>> +"to change. To configure the name to use as the initial branch name in\n"
>> +"new repositories, or to silence this warning, run:\n"
>
> s/new repositories/all of your new repositories/ as that is the
> whole point of using --global option below.
>
>> +"\n"
>> +"\tgit config --global init.defaultBranch <name>\n"
>> +);
>> +

The above may give a valuable lesson to those who want to use one branch name across new repositories, but it does not tell those who wanted 'trunk' (to match the project, perhaps github.com/cli/cli, with which they intend to interact) how to recover from having already created the 'master' branch. We may want to add some text to suggest "branch -M" after giving the advice for the permanent option.

Also, it is unclear to those who do not have a good <name> in mind (or, those who do not care to choose a <name> for themselves), what <name> they should give to take the "or to silence this warning" part of the advice. It probably is a good idea to rephrase and say either:

    ... To configure ... in all your new repositories and squelch
    this message, run:

	git config --global init.defaultBranch <name>

or

    ... To configure ... in all your new repositories, run:

	git config --global init.defaultBranch <name>

    Note that this message won't appear after doing so.

I am offhand not sure which one is better.

Thanks.