Re: [RFC] Delete current branch

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

Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:

> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Did you know that the general way to spell the branch previously you
>> were on is "@{-1}" and "checkout -" is an ugly special case that is
>> possible only because "checkout" does not happen to take a "-" as a
>> valid argument that means something else (like the more usual "read
>> from standard input")?
>
> I disagree that it is ugly: it's a very commonly used shortcut that I
> like.

It does not matter if you like it or not ;-).

I do agree that "checkout -" is 100% more pleasing to the eye than
"checkout @{-1}" from visual "prettyness" point of view.

But there is a very commonly accepted long tradition for "-" to mean
"read from the standard input", so we cannot reuse it to mean "the
branch I was previously on" for every command without first making
sure the command will never want to use "-" for the other common
purpose.

That limits the context we could use "-" and we cannot consistently
use it everywhere. I find _that_ ugly from the "design cleanliness"
point of view.