Re: Usability issue: "Your branch is up to date"

["Manuel Quiñones" <manuel.por.aca@gmail.com>]

El lun, 3 feb 2025 a la(s) 11:08 p.m., D. Ben Knoble
(ben.knoble@gmail.com) escribió:
>
> On Mon, Feb 3, 2025 at 7:28 PM Bram van Oosterhout
> <adriaanbram0712@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ahhhh, this thread explains my confusion when, even though git locally
> > tells me my branch is "up to date", a fetch demonstrates the branch is
> > not up to date.
> >
> > Which begs the question: Why does git say: "Your branch is up to date
> > ..." if at best it can say: "Your
> > branch MIGHT BE up to date with ..."?
>
>
> Well, the branch _is_ up to date with your remote-tracking branch [1]
> origin/main; that doesn't mean the tracking branch is up-to-date with
> the repository origin's branch main!
>
> I find it helpful to break the notion for newcomers early on that
> origin/main somehow is "equal to" the repository named by origin's
> main branch. Git (mostly) only communicates with remote repos when you
> fetch, push, or, pull—in other words (and this bit may be more for
> Manuel), try to reinforce that things Git knows locally are only local
> and not inherently tied to other repositories. Learning this
> distributed lesson proves hard in my experience but explains a lot
> about the reality of how Git operates.

Thanks for the advice Ben. Very good point. I will introduce the
difference between the origin's main branch and the remote-tracking
branch early in lessons. This is a core part of how Git works.

Still I suggest improving the usability for new generations with a
timestamp of the remote-tracking branch last update. Hopefully in the
future it will be possible!

--
.. manuq ..