Subject: Re: [PATCH 5/5] docs/checkout: clarify what "non-branch" means

From: Mark Levedahl <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:40:35 -0400

On Monday 13 April 2009 12:31:31 Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:
> > I hope this helps a little bit with Mark's confusion. But while writing
> > it, I really think it would be a simpler rule to say "if it's in
> > refs/heads/, then it's a branch" (which is similar to what Mark
> > suggested earlier).
> >
> > So "git checkout refs/heads/master" would be identical to "git checkout
> > master". That would require a code change, though.
>
> Sorry, but I do not get the logic behind such a change.
>

I think the question being posed is: Would unifying branch names across all 
git commands (i.e., always accepting refs/heads/master as naming branch 
master, and accepting master when that is unambiguous) sufficiently benefit 
new users trying to learn git that it would be worth the change? The fact that 
refs/heads/master will be interpreted as branch or non-branch, and possibly as 
refs/heads/refs/heads/master, being a different branch, across different git 
commands is certainly not "intuitively obvious" to new users.

In this vein, I suggest that
	$ git checkout --detach master
as a way to get a detached HEAD on branch master is more understandable than
	$ git checkout refs/heads/master

Mark