On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:42:05 -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
> There is no question we do not commit "another-file" and we do
> commit changes to the "existing-file" as a whole.  What should
> we do to "a-new-file", and how do we explain why we do so to
> novices?

I'll offer a couple of ill-informed comments from a novice's
point-of-view if I may.

My first exposure to git (about 1 week ago) was "A short git
tutorial" [*]

I found the discussion of the index, git-update-index, and the subtle
distinctions between the various git-diff commands rather intimidating
for an initial introduction. After getting to know the system better
over the past week, it seems it should be possible to have a class of
"novice ready" tools that provide for common use cases and that never
require any mention of the index in their documentation. If so, that
seems to me a useful goal to work toward and a useful guide in this
discussion.

> We could make "git commit" without paths to mean the current
> "-a" behaviour, which would match CVS behaviour more closely.

Again, my novice experience leads me to favor that change. After
reading the tutorial, I had the following sequence in mind for
committing an edited file:

	git update-index edited-file
	git commit

which seemed like more pain than strictly necessary. The next day,
when I went to the linux.conf.au tutorial and saw Linus use:

	git commit -a

for the same operation it was a breath of fresh air. I was left
scratching my head wondering why the -a behavior wasn't the default
for "git commit" with no paths.

> However, it would make commit after a merge conflict resolution
> in a dirty working tree _very_ dangerous -- it may give more
> familiar feel to CVS people, but it is not an improvement for
> git people at all.  I would rather not.

I'm still not "git people" I guess. Could you explain what the danger
is here? And is it something the tool could detect and prevent?

-Carl

[*] http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/core-tutorial.html [*

A better initial introduction for me would likely have been "A
tutorial introduction to git":

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html

so a link to the latter from the first paragraph or so of the former
might be very helpful.