Re: Terminology question about remote branches.

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> "Lars Hjemli" <hjemli@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> > Was this helpful?
>>
>> Talking to myself: obviously not
>
> Disagree.  "Does this answer all questions and makes git's behavior
> perfectly transparent" -- no.  But let's not confuse "magical" with
> "helpful" here.

Ok, let's have another go.  Maybe I have understood more as compared
with last time.

git-branch/git-commit -b creates and manages local branches, nothing
else.  Local branches' defining feature is that they have a branch
head I can move around myself.

Then there are non-local branches.  Their defining feature is that
they have no locally moving branch head and _must_ track a remote
branch.

But local branches _also_ can track the progress/head of a remote
branch.  Since they have a locally moving branch head, this will often
lead to merge conflicts which must be resolved.

So this is more or less what I understand now.  There really is no
difference between "tracking" and "following" as I thought previously.
It is just that a local branch which happens to track a remote branch
is basically a remote tracking branch with a head of its own.

Which means it can get merge conflicts.  Can we get merge conflicts
with a remote tracking branch, too?  Namely when the remote branch
messed with its history, rebased/reverted stuff?

So that the real difference between a local and a remote tracking
branch is not that the latter tracks a remote branch (the former can
do that as well), but that the latter has no local branch head and
that saves us a lot (but not necessary all) merge conflicts?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum