Re: [PATCH v3 7/8] checkout: introduce --{,no-}overlay option

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 23, 2019, 21:08 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqzhrr9j52.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20190123202156.GA11293@hank.intra.tgummerer.com>

Thomas Gummerer <t.gummerer@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

>> I had no idea what --overlay would mean and am still not clear on it.
>> Is this analogous to "git add --ignore-removal"?  If so, can we just
>> call it --ignore-removal?
>
> Yes, it seems like they are very similar.

Hmm, I am not sure if the word "removal" makes sense in the context of "checkout", as "removal" is an _action_ just like "checking out" itself is, and not a _state_. You'd check out a state out of a tree to the index and the working tree, so "checking out absence of a path" may make sense, though, as "absence of a path" is a state recorded in that source tree object.

The word "removal" makes little sense in "git add --ignore-removal", but it and "git add --no-all" outlived their usefulness already, so it may not be worth _fixing_ it. But I am mildly opposed to spread the earlier mistake to a new option.