Re: [PATCH] [checkout-index] Give names to stages

[Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>]

Luben Tuikov <ltuikov@yahoo.com> writes:

> One can now say "git-checkout-index --stage=ours ..."  or
> "git-checkout-index --stage=theirs ...", instead of having
> to remember the corresponding number assigned to each stage.

I really do not like to have this in checkout-index; I would
rather keep checkout-index a purely plumbing thing.  If there
are valid and frequently appearing use cases that currently
requires "checkout-index --stage=$n", I think that need should
be addressed as a missing feature in the UI layer.

During a conflicted merge, you may run "diff --cc" in order to
decide that you would want to take yours (or theirs), and that
would be a good reason to wanting to checkout "your" version (or
"their" version; but I do not think of a valid reason to want to
say "checkout-index --stage=1").  From the UI point of view, it
would make more sense to be able to say:

	$ git checkout --ours hello.c
	$ git checkout --theirs Makefile

If the user is interested in looking at raw copies of our and
their version for comparison (not just "diff --theirs" kind of
usage), it _might_ even make sense to be able to do:

	$ git checkout --stdout --ours hello.c >hello.c-ours
	$ git checkout --stdout --theirs hello.c >hello.c-theirs
        $ diff -u hello.c-ours hello.c-theirs

I do not particularly like the above overloaded meaning of
"checkout" myself, but that would be something people who are
used to "cvs up -p" might expect to be able to do.

If we were to do both of the above, then it might even make
sense to make the first form (sans --stdout) to also mark the
index entry after checking out the specified higher stage.

And the UI layer (Porcelain-ish) should be where we should add
the "usability" and "human readability" bits.