Quick way to clone exactly one branch

[Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Is there a quick alternative to the following?

   mkdir myproj
   cd myproj
   git init
   git fetch git://whatever master
   git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD

Basically, the above is a lot like 'git clone' but only clones the
'master' branch.  For really big projects with lots of junk in other
branches, the above can save a lot of bandwidth.

Also, if I were using git clone, I would often use --reference above.
I'm kind of afraid of explaining to a newbie that they should add an
entry to .git/objects/info/alternates after step 3.

Am I missing something obvious?

Have fun,

Avery