Re: [PATCH v4 4/4] worktree: make add <path> dwim

[Paul Smith <paul@mad-scientist.net>]

On Sat, 2017-11-25 at 17:50 +0000, Thomas Gummerer wrote:
> This would be the output in the new version:
> 
>      $ git worktree add ../bla
>      Branch 'bla' set up to track remote branch 'bla' from 'origin'.
>      Preparing ../bla (identifier bla)
>      HEAD is now at 4aade43 bla
> 
> vs. the output without the changed behaviour:
> 
>      $ git worktree add ../bla
>      Preparing ../bla (identifier bla)
>      HEAD is now at 0f215c9 initial import
> 
> Of course that assumes that it's used directly, not in scripts, and
> that users will actually read the output of the command when they
> invoke it.  Maybe these are not safe assumptions to make though, and
> we'd rather not have this on by default then.  As I mentioned
> previously I would prefer having this as default, but I'm happy to
> hide this behaviour behind a flag if we want to be more careful about
> introducing this.  Dunno?

Speaking as a simple user, I find the current behavior of Git worktree
add very frustrating; I am constantly wanting to create worktrees for
other peoples' branches so I can look at the code there without messing
up my workspace, and it's really inconvenient to do that now.

Also, the current special handling of the directory name as a putative
branch name is not helpful for me because many of the branches I need
to examine use "/" as their separator.  I don't begrudge making that
feature more "DWIM" for those that can use it, but hopefully some help
is forthcoming for those who can't.

For example, I need to create a local worktree for the remote rel/1.0
branch... what do I do?

What I want to work is this:

    git worktree add ../1.0 rel/1.0

and have it create a worktree at ../1.0, then do the equivalent of "git
checkout rel/1.0" which includes setting up to track the remote branch.
 But of course this doesn't work at all; I get:

    fatal: invalid reference: rel/1.0

Personally I would think it odd to have to add an extra flag to get
what I would expect would be "normal" behavior (checkout).

But maybe that's just me.