Subject: Re: why is git destructive by default? (i suggest it not be!)

From: Lea Wiemann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:14:01 +0200

David Jeske wrote:
> ... or we expect "human parsing of the the log" is a valid common
> user-interface for non-git developers.

As a side note, the reflog is not only a valid user interface, but an 
important one: As a local developer that feeds patches to the mailing 
list, I frequently change the history in my local repository (using 
rebase, reset and am, or pull --rebase) to keep the commits clean when 
they finally get merged upstream.  I *want* and *need* at least basic 
versioning for the various states my history is in.

IOW, I not only make changes to the tree and commit them to my master 
branch, but I also make changes to my master branch and "commit" them to 
(store them in) the reflog.

That's not an interesting use case if you're working on a branch that 
other people pull from, but for a local clone it's very useful.  (And 
it's a feature I haven't seen in any VCSes, FWIW.)

Best,

     Lea