Re: Which freedesktop.org "design flaws" in git are still relevant?

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

>> * git-fetch requires that the branch be named on both sides of
>>   the :. It should treat 'foo' as an alias for 'foo:foo'.
>
> So 'foo' is treated as 'foo:' (which means fetch, and not store), and
> not as 'foo:foo'. It is perhaps a bit strange, but backward
> compatibility would I think prohibit us to change it, even if it would
> make more sense to have it be shortcut for 'foo:foo' instead.

It is not strange nor b/c requirement at all.  If anything, it
could default to "foo:remotes/$remote/foo", not "foo:foo", but
even then, it shouldn't.

You are missing a bigger picture.  I think the list predates the
introduction of separate remotes, which has been the default for
more than a year.

You would have "fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*"
these days in the configuration by default.  What this means is
that you would have much less reason to run "fetch $there foo"
to begin with.  The only time you would fetch in that way is
when you want an unconfigured, single-shot fetch, in which case
you do _NOT_ want tracking.  So there is no valid reason to
default "foo" to "foo:<anything>", unless that <anything> is
empty.  Not to foo:foo, not to foo:remotes/$remote/foo.

Many of the remaining parts of the complaint list share the
misunderstanding coming from the lack of understanding of
separate remotes layout.