Improvement of git commit interface

["Patrick Häcker" <patrick.haecker@lss.uni-stuttgart.de>]

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Hello,

I introduce git to students and thus see, where they have a harder time than 
necessary to understand git.

Thus, I was thinking about a CLI improvement regarding "git commit". It 
follows from the observation, that the staging area is a very valuable 
thing, but it should not be needed for very simple workflows and thus should 
not be the first concept, the students have to learn about.

After a file has been added to the repository once, you can use git without 
knowing anything about the staging area, with "git commit <filename>". 
Shouldn't we allow "git commit <filename>" for files never added to git, as 
well?
Then, IMHO this would be more consistent, as in a small project a typical 
commit (with a new file) consists of adding a new file to the repository and 
changing an existing file (e.g. to call a function located in the new file). 
ATM this is done with "git add <newfile> <oldfile> && git commit". But as we 
track content and not files, it were perfectly logical, if "git commit 
<newfile> <oldfile>" were possible, as then it were completely consistent to 
only change an existing file without adding a new file, which is "git commit 
<oldfile>".

So I suggest to change "git commit <filename>" so that if <filename> cannot 
be found in the repository, it is also looked for in the working directory 
and basically a "git add <filename> && git commit" is done if the <filename> 
is found.

I do _not_ suggest to change "git commit -a" to include all files never 
added to git, because that would be rather error prone. So after the change 
we would have an inconsistency between "git commit <newfile>" and "git 
commit -a", but I think this inconsistency is better than having the 
inconsistency between "git commit <oldfile>" and "git commit <newfile>".

Kind regards
Patrick

P.S. Please CC, as I am not subscribed


-- 
Patrick Häcker
Universität Stuttgart 
Lehrstuhl für Systemtheorie und Signalverarbeitung 
Tel: +49 711 685 67362
E-Mail: patrick.haecker@lss.uni-stuttgart.de
URL: http://www.lss.uni-stuttgart.de

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