From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Daniel Barkalow Subject: Re: Difficulties in advertising a new branch to git newbies Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:10:47 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: References: <87odognuhl.wl%cworth@cworth.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: Carl Worth X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Jan 31 01:11:29 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HC34R-0007Vo-Fc for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:11:27 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752055AbXAaAKw (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:10:52 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752065AbXAaAKw (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:10:52 -0500 Received: from iabervon.org ([66.92.72.58]:2489 "EHLO iabervon.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752055AbXAaAKv (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:10:51 -0500 Received: (qmail 674 invoked by uid 1000); 30 Jan 2007 19:10:49 -0500 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 30 Jan 2007 19:10:49 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87odognuhl.wl%cworth@cworth.org> Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Carl Worth wrote: > Also, if I'm willing to assume (or insist) that users have git 1.5 or > newer, it'd be nice to be able to drop the "-b build" thing thanks to > the new detached HEAD support. But if I suggest doing just: > > git checkout origin/proposed-fix > > the user is presented with the following message which is much more > scary than useful in this situation: > > warning: you are not on ANY branch anymore. > If you meant to create a new branch from the commit, you need -b to > associate a new branch with the wanted checkout. Example: > git checkout -b origin/proposed-fix I think the warning should just be something where a user following your instructions will say, "ah, yes, that's actually what I want." Maybe: warning: you are now browsing the history without a local branch. You will not be able to commit changes unless you create a new local branch with "git checkout -b ". It's a bit silly for us to simply warn people that they're using this feature, rather than telling them what the potential downside is. Since it's marked as a warning, with no further information, the intuitive inference is that all sorts of bad things could happen (like, too many for us to list). At least we don't say "warning: your HEAD is now detatched" but still... -Daniel *This .sig left intentionally blank*