Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc: Modify git-add doc to say "staging area"

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 20:41:44 +0100

On Thu, Dec 14 2017, Junio C. Hamano jotted:

> Stefan Beller <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Anyway I think spending list band width on good documentation is
>> not bandwidth wasted.
>
> I agree with that.  I do not consider the proposed change "good".

The case you're talking about upthread is something which we could
describe in the docs as "the starting point of the staging area is that
it's equivalent to the current commit, and is thus used as an
index/cache by various commands", if that ever comes up.

I think in the vast majority of other cases talking about it as the
staging area would be an improvement, since that's the function that has
the closest correspondence to what the UI is actually doing, that we're
using it as a cache / index is usually (always?) an implementation
detail.

Even the merge case you mentioned is something where staging area makes
more sense: "We tried to merge, but had a conflict, we've staged some of
your changes leaving the rest for you to sort out".