Re: confusion over the new branch and merge config

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Dec 22, 2006 at 10:15:15PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Only *if* you store it in that tracking branch.  The name the
> other party gives _do_ matter to you anyway, because you have to
> _know_ it to fetch.  What it does NOT matter is if you use a
> tracking branch, or if you do, which local tracking branch you
> use to track it.

No, their names _don't_ matter to most users. With the new remote layout
and wildcards, I'll never even see 'refs/heads/next' when I clone
git.git; I'll only talk about 'origin/next'.  The local tracking branch
matters much more to me, because it's the thing I'll use to interact
with git. I don't say 'git-checkout -b topic origin refs/heads/master';
I say 'git-checkout -b topic origin/next'.

Yes, my proposed syntax means you have to have a tracking branch. But
does it really make sense for people to put entries in their config
file, but not have a tracking branch? What do people use non-tracking
branch pulls for, anyway? I would assume for one-off pulls of
infrequently used repositories, in which case they're always saying
"git-pull git://path/to/repo foo:bar". My point being that if we can
improve the usefulness of the config file, it's probably not worth
worrying about people combining branch.*.merge config entries with
non-tracking-branch pulls, since they're extremely unlikely to be used
together.

Does anyone out there use non-tracking-branch pulls? If so, can you
describe your use case?

-Peff