Subject: Re: git and bzr

From: Andreas Ericsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 13:25:19 +0100

Marko Macek wrote:
> Linus Torvalds wrote:
>> So most of the time, when you use git, you can ignore the index. It's 
>> really important, and it's used _all_ the time, but you can still 
>> mostly ignore it. But when handling a merge conflict, the index is 
>> really what sets git apart, and what really helps a LOT.
> 
> Actually, people (at least me) dislike the index because in the most common
> operations (status, diff, commit), they have to know that the command 
> doesn't actually
> display all their work but just the 'indexed' part of it.
> For people used to cvs, svn and other systems it would be nicer if diff -a
> and commit -a (and possibly other commands) were the default.
> 

Unless you do "git update-index" (and thus are already using the index) 
on any files, "git diff" shows you exactly the changes between your last 
commit and the working tree. There's nothing magic, odd or confusing 
about it, no matter which scm you come from.