From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Rich Pixley Subject: Re: Newbie grief Date: Fri, 04 May 2012 10:57:59 -0700 Message-ID: <4FA418A7.2050100@palm.com> References: <4F9F128C.5020304@palm.com> <201204302331.q3UNVo7o032303@no.baka.org> <4F9F28F5.2020403@palm.com> <201205010137.q411bxaU002449@no.baka.org> <4F9F52B9.9060508@palm.com> <08704bd2e32343a4b9def80e4fa1efa2-mfwitten@gmail.com> <4FA2D8EA.7030809@palm.com> <87obq5ggpu.fsf@an-dro.info.enstb.org> <7vehr1dl2z.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> <4FA307C5.102@palm.com> <4FA3090D.5080406@palm.com> <4FA32A6A.4070007@blizzard.com> <1167779eee7d442b9db0eecb347d5516-mfwitten@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Nathan Gray , Junio C Hamano , Illia Bobyr , Ronan Keryell , "git@vger.kernel.org" To: Michael Witten X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri May 04 20:07:41 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SQMuq-0006HR-DX for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Fri, 04 May 2012 20:07:40 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753490Ab2EDSHg (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 May 2012 14:07:36 -0400 Received: from smtp-relay2.palm.com ([64.28.152.243]:36085 "EHLO smtp-relay2.palm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752693Ab2EDSHf (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 May 2012 14:07:35 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 562 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Fri, 04 May 2012 14:07:35 EDT X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.75,532,1330934400"; d="scan'208";a="13315903" Received: from unknown (HELO ushqusdns3.palm.com) ([148.92.223.90]) by smtp-relay2.palm.com with ESMTP; 04 May 2012 10:58:13 -0700 Received: from fuji.noir.com ([10.100.2.1]) by ushqusdns3.palm.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q44Hvwc1029542; Fri, 4 May 2012 10:57:59 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:12.0) Gecko/20120428 Thunderbird/12.0.1 In-Reply-To: <1167779eee7d442b9db0eecb347d5516-mfwitten@gmail.com> Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On 5/3/12 21:35 , Michael Witten wrote: > On Thu, 3 May 2012 20:13:01 -0700, Nathan Gray wrote: > >> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 6:01 PM, Illia Bobyr wrote: >>> It is just a "non-fast forward" move of a branch tip. This term >>> describes what happens precisely :) >>> >>> It is true, that the term is non obvious to the new comers. >>> One may google and get an explanation of the error pretty quickly. >>> First hit for "git non fast forward error" gives an explanation from a >>> new comer point of view for the simplest case. >> I just led a team of reasonably bright people through a transition >> from SVN to git. Not one of them understood this message. Every one >> of them thought something was broken. This is a very common >> occurrence, so a short, simple message without jargon for this error >> would be a big, big win. > Well, what is your suggestion? > > Nobody in this thread has yet provided an explicit improvement because > the actual complaint is that the vast majority of people (including > supposed "professionals") don't RTFM; it never even occurs to them! > > Let's look at the message in question: > > To $uri_for_central_repo > ! [rejected] HEAD -> feature_0 (non-fast-forward) > error: failed to push some refs to '$uri_for_central_repo' > To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected > Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing again. See the > 'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details. > > Not only does this already spoonfeed the reader with a suggested > command for getting back on track (i.e., 'git pull'), but it also > explicitly points out the relevant documentation and HOW to gain > immediate access to that information from the command line! Let's take it line by line. "Rejected - mumble" - the tool did not do what you asked. "error: failed to mumble" - your data is corrupt. "To prevent you mumble mumble" - you're not allowed to do what you want I stopped reading there. I'm not saying this is a correct interpretation. I'm offering it as a data point from a sophisticated, although new, user. I've already offered a suggestion for rewording. --rich