From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Patrick Doyle Subject: path/to/some/file: needs update Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 13:34:24 -0500 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 To: git X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri Dec 03 19:34:52 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1POaT5-0001G2-MW for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:34:52 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753748Ab0LCSeq (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Dec 2010 13:34:46 -0500 Received: from mail-fx0-f46.google.com ([209.85.161.46]:45361 "EHLO mail-fx0-f46.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751759Ab0LCSeq (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Dec 2010 13:34:46 -0500 Received: by fxm20 with SMTP id 20so2478969fxm.19 for ; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:34:44 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:mime-version:received:from:date :message-id:subject:to:content-type; bh=8ohWBD3QWHi7XOYjog+qqWAkT+gW9jYzQohbGscG0jA=; b=F912MeCIvucmqw95bylpiFp5KGZHZIVv05JGH196LpFaC/Jr7UvIWnxgKaSasywQfa /SSjvETybzyEmNBYIVFnEp98QGNSk0CjHnRmosrFlosIdobaM11cNMdxGrowFWxrWdfK aLR8DquCSatlK0HQ9GI2dTRtldmNq3oII9TSY= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:from:date:message-id:subject:to:content-type; b=v7ePuCOmKVq0mc4ibTPxH2AuYs3CzITNFwslH6MdqGRSknL+t6gokRDwvzlAIQERXX Za13tEfJDmz2vypqLLQakYJEZF8TmJV1e7LUyGrQf4FuQOqCaksTBVAXY+Go/lnx6XVN GCYNUF92Go2PqQoZk5IUfR6iNV5r48sVUpvjw= Received: by 10.223.118.132 with SMTP id v4mr2524743faq.87.1291401284813; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:34:44 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.223.115.17 with HTTP; Fri, 3 Dec 2010 10:34:24 -0800 (PST) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Would it make sense to change the "needs update" message to read "locally modified"? I walked out of the office yesterday afternoon little knowing that the two folks left there, who are both VCS neophytes in general, were about to enter what they described as "version control H#@@". It all started when one of them tried to pull the latest version of our repository from the server. He was quite startled by all of the messages that read path/to/some/file: needs update. Then things got worse... one of the messages said: error: Entry 'path/to/some/binaryfile' not uptodate. Cannot merge "Huh?!?!", they exclaimed to each other. "I wasn't doing a merge. I was doing a pull. Well, I guess that's kinda like a merge. But why did it generate an error? Shouldn't it have generated a conflict message?". At least, I'm imagining that's what they said to each other. I wasn't there. I just got the phone call an hour later when I was on the train going home. Needless to say, I was able to calm them down. But it occurred to me that "needs update" isn't necessarily the most helpful message and that "error: ... Cannot merge" could offer a little more explanation. I'm happy to submit the trivial patch changing "needs update" to "locally modified". I suspect there might be some ramifications in terms of scripts that expect the old message to be there, but hopefully not. What do folks think? --wpd