Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] remote: advise about force-pushing as an alternative to reconciliation

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 7, 2023, 17:52 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq8rbra9ti.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAMMLpeS9_P=XXMoOdTAM3jZbaxfLEJNwYArS6p9pMXisT3TRtw@mail.gmail.com>

Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com> writes:

> So, let's please give the user all of the
> information (two ways forward: reconcile or delete) and encourage them
> to make the most appropriate decision for their particular workflow.

It may be OK to do so in "git status".

It does not make any sense in "git checkout" to talk about "you can force push". That happens AFTER the work is done, and a message that tells them BEFORE they start the work and asking them to remember doing the right thing is an unnecessary noise.

I would rather see us toning the message down, e.g. "Your branches have diverged. **IF** you intend to eventually reconcile the work on the remote with yours, you could use `git pull` to do so now" is all we should say. If they do not want to keep the work on the remote, at the point of seeing "you have diverged", there is nothing they need to do. There is no need to talk about "push --force" and force the user to remember that they have to do so later. When they try "git push", an appropriate message should be given anyway, but that is not the message you are touching in this patch.

For that matter, it does not make ANY sense to give "you can pull to reconcile" message in the comment you are editing the log message while running "git commit". It would be the most inconvenient time to do so. So it might be necessary to first tweak the code so that different messages depending on the codepath are shown, perhaps by teaching format_tracking_info() who is calling.

Thanks.