Re: [PATCH] Add hints to revert documentation about other ways to undo changes

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

Tarmigan Casebolt <tarmigan+git@gmail.com> writes:

> I put this in a Note: in the DESCRIPTION section.  If there is
> consensus about moving it somewhere else, I can send another patch.

I think a note in the description would be fine.

> +Note: Despite its name, 'git revert' may not undo changes in the way
> +that you expect.  If you want to throw away all uncommitted changes in
> +your working directory, you should see linkgit:git-reset[1],
> +particulary the '--hard' option.  If you want to extract specific
> +files as they were in another commit, you should see
> +linkgit:git-checkout[1], specifically the 'git checkout <commit> --
> +<filename>' syntax.  Take care with these alternatives as both will
> +discard uncommitted changes in your working directory.
> +

The last sentence makes the paragraph incoherent, doesn't it?

By starting this paragraph with "Despite its name", you are stating your
expectation that the people who find "git revert" nonintuitive are the
majority.  And you explain how to perform the operation that majority
would expect, which is to throw away uncommitted changes to go back to the
clean slate.  If that is what the target audience of this paragraph
expects to happen anyway, why do you need to caution against it in the
last sentence?

If the answer is "because it is not cut-and-dried which expectation is the
majority, and we try to be careful not to lose local modifications of
users", then the tone of the paragraph needs to become more neutral.

I'd suggest either dropping the first sentence altogether and starting the
paragraph with "If you want to throw away...", or replacing the first
sentence with "'git revert' is used to record a new commit to reverse the
effect of an earlier commit (often a faulty one)."