Re: [PATCH 2/4] usability: fix am and checkout for nevermind questions

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Jean-Noel Avila wrote:

> Subject: usability: fix am and checkout for nevermind questions
>
> Signed-off-by: Jean-Noel Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>

Thanks for working on improving Git's UX.  I agree with the goal in
general (we should not gratuitously surprise users) but I think I
lack context for appreciating this particular example.

This is a good place to describe the motivation behind the patch and
what effective change it would have.

[...]
> +++ b/builtin/am.c
[...]
>  	if (is_empty_file(am_path(state, "patch"))) {
> -		printf_ln(_("Patch is empty. Was it split wrong?"));
> +		printf_ln(_("Patch is empty. It may have been split wrong."));
[...]
>  	if (unmerged_cache()) {
>  		printf_ln(_("You still have unmerged paths in your index.\n"
> -			"Did you forget to use 'git add'?"));
> +			"You might want to use 'git add' on them."));
[...]
>  		if (opts.new_branch && argc == 1)
>  			die(_("Cannot update paths and switch to branch '%s' at the same time.\n"
> -			      "Did you intend to checkout '%s' which can not be resolved as commit?"),
> +			      "'%s' can not be resolved as commit, but it should."),

In the current state I think this patch makes things worse (questions
are not automatically a bad thing), which would make it especially
useful to see more about the motivation so we can find out whether
there's another way.

Thanks,
Jonathan