Re: a more helpful message on "git status" output

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 18, 2014, 21:12 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqy4vql6c2.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAKQhN+p5FpX-GEZeX0t-Y1Sq6+fdfRpE+ACqhKgdLWGFRj0ToA@mail.gmail.com>

Julián Landerreche <maniqui@gmail.com> writes:

Show 18 quoted lines

>> By running "git pull", the user may obtain yet newer commits from
>> the upstream, which very likely will happen in an active project, or
>> "git fetch" launched by "git pull" will return without doing
>> anything after noticing there is nothing new.
>>
>> As long as the updates to the upstream is also a fast-forward, it
>> will still fast-forward you, but to an even newer state of the
>> upstream.
>>
>> There is no harm done[*1*] by suggesting "git pull" over "git
>> merge", no?
>
> OK, I'm mostly convinced.
> A more verbose, educational output could read:
>
>   (use "git pull" to fetch newer commits from upstream and update your
> local branch)
>   (use "git merge" to update your local branch)

I actually do not like that, to be honest.

These brief reminders should be just that, and if anything, we should aim to make them shorter and more concise, not longer and more verbose. They will never be sufficient to replace "education" (otherwise why would we even have complete manual?)---they should just point the users clearly in the right direction.