Subject: Re: Branches & directories

From: Michael J Gruber <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:56:26 +0200

Michael Witten venit, vidit, dixit 18.08.2011 07:52:
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 21:23, Hilco Wijbenga <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> It would be really nice, though, if Git could somehow
>> "stash" such files when checking out a different branch. In general, I
>> would prefer if uncommitted changes and untracked and/or ignored files
>> stuck to the branch where they were created.
> 
> As an aside, the problem here is likely a manifestation of the fact
> that nobody understands what a branch is; the word 'branch' is

I would reject "nobody"...

> TERRIBLE, as everyone has a different idea for what that should mean.

... and insist that this statement is true either trivially true for all
words, or for none, depending on your understanding of "everyone has a
different".

> In my opinion, `git branch' should become `git ref' or the like.

"branch" and "tag" are boths refs. Their only essential difference is
that one "moves" and the other doesn't.

> One of git's worst faults is that a complicated and imprecise
> interface has been draped over a very simple and precise underlying
> structure.

A name is a name and just that. The use of any existing word may clash
with someone's expectations.

I find the concepts "file created on a branch", "commit created on a
branch" silly, it's part of what drove me from hg to git early on. A git
"branch" is an hg "bookmark" these days (a named "head"), and if that
name triggers the right associations for some people, its best used in
explanations for those. git's branches do exactly what I (and many
others) expect branches to do and what I need daily, even coming from a
svn and hg background.

Michael