Re: [PATCH 0/2] [GIT PULL] ktest: A couple of fixes

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> If you do a
>
>   git pull linus v3.4-rc5
>
> in order to just update to the state of my latest tag, then git will
> assume you want to do a new commit (and thus a non-fast-forward) just
> so that git can record the tag signature in the commit.
>
> The sad part is that I don't think you can even override the second
> case.
> ...
> That's inconvenient, and an unintended consequence of the behavior I
> wanted as a top-level maintainer. But I really do think it's wrong for
> normal developers who might validly just want to update to some
> particular tagged release.
>
> Junio? Any ideas?

"Ideas" meaning "recipe to do with deployed binaries"?

When a normal developer wants to _reset to_ a particular tagged release,
in order to _start_ new work, she wouldn't be doing even the above "git
pull linus v3.4-rc5".  That will contaminate the result with whatever
random stuff she happened to have on the current branch.  A more natural
sequence would be "git fetch --tags linus" followed by either

        git checkout v3.4-rc5 ;# to detach

or

        git checkout -b mywork v3.4-rc5 ;# to start

So the case to "reset to" is not very interesting.

But when a normal developer wants to _sync to_ a particular tagged
release, in order to _continue_ working on her topic, she would need to
have a merge (unless she does not have _anything_ herself), and at that
point, merging v3.4-rc5 vs v3.4-rc5^0 would not make that much of a
difference.  If she absolutely detests the "mergetag" header, she could do
a "git fetch --tags linus" followed by

	git merge v3.4-rc5^0

which admittedly is two more letters than she used to type.

If you mean by "Ideas" for additional features, obviously the last step
could be enhanced to use a more intuitive command line that requires the
user to type even more, i.e.

	git merge --ff v3.4-rc5

Once that is done, "git pull --ff linus v3.4-rc5" would fall out as a
logical consequence.

But obviously these two would need new code ;-)