From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on dcvr.yhbt.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-ASN: AS31976 209.132.176.0/21 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.5 required=3.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MSGID_FROM_MTA_HEADER,RP_MATCHES_RCVD shortcircuit=no autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: Cleaning up git user-interface warts Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:22:08 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: References: <87k61yt1x2.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <455A1137.8030301@shadowen.org> <87hcx1u934.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <87bqn9u43s.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <7vbqn9y6w6.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> <7v3b8ltq7r.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> <455BBCE9.4050503@xs4all.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:22:37 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Han-Wen Nienhuys , Junio C Hamano , git@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org In-Reply-To: X-MIMEDefang-Filter: osdl$Revision: 1.159 $ X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.36 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GkqYn-0007Q5-Ed for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:22:22 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1162301AbWKPXWR (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:22:17 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1162302AbWKPXWR (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:22:17 -0500 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:32389 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1162301AbWKPXWQ (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:22:16 -0500 Received: from shell0.pdx.osdl.net (fw.osdl.org [65.172.181.6]) by smtp.osdl.org (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id kAGNM9oZ013058 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:22:10 -0800 Received: from localhost (shell0.pdx.osdl.net [10.9.0.31]) by shell0.pdx.osdl.net (8.13.1/8.11.6) with ESMTP id kAGNM8TI011262; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:22:09 -0800 To: Johannes Schindelin Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 17 Nov 2006, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > > Never ever underestimate pet peeves. If we give many people an obvious > reason (however trivial and bike-shed-coloured) to complain, they will > complain. I do actually think that this discussion has been informative, partly because I never even realized that some people would ever think to do "init-db" + "pull". Making things like that work is easy enough, it's just that I never saw any point until people complained. And when they complained, the initial complaint wasn't actually obvious. Only when Han-Wen actually gave something that didn't work, was it clear that the real issue wasn't so much _naming_, as just expectations about the _work_flow_. > And hopefully you also agree that enhancing the syntax of git-merge to > grok "git-merge [-m message] " and "git-merge [-m message] > " would be a lovely thing, luring even more > people into using git. I definitely think we can make "git merge" have a more pleasant syntax. I'm just still not sure that people should actually use it ;) My real point was/is that usually it's really not the "naming details" that people _really_ have problems with. The real problems tend to be in learning a new workflow. We can make some of those workflows easier, but I would heartily recommend that people not worry about naming of "pull" vs "fetch", because that's almost certainly not really the issue. Instead, if you have a problem, rather than concentrating on the names of the programs, say: - what do you want to get done. Most likely it's _trivial_ to do with git, it's just that somebody used the wrong approach, and then it didn't work at all. - give actual examples of a workflow that didn't work or was complex. (again, the "init-db" + "pull" example). And yes, in many cases, it might well be a case of "sure, we can make that _other_ workflow work too". But somebody like me, who has used git for a year and a half, and used BK before it, probably simply uses a different workflow than somebody who comes from CVS. For example, I suspect that your gripe with "git fetch" was just from using it in a really awkward manner. Maybe we could make your workflow work with git too, but maybe it really already (and always) did, you just used a particular tool in a way that made the use be really really painful. Sometimes it's just a question of "ok, use it like _this_, and now it's actually really simple". Other times it's "ok, I didn't even realize that you wanted to use it like _that_, and yeah, that's incredibly inconvenient, and we can change it". I just got involved in this discussion because I thought people were talking about all the wrong things. Command naming really can't be _that_ big of a deal. I really don't believe that we should have some people use "gh" instead of "git" just because they think "pull" should mean not to merge or something.