Re: Git in Outreachy December 2019?

[Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.email>]

On 23/09/2019 20:40, Jeff King wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 06:47:01PM -0700, Emily Shaffer wrote:
>
>> """
>> "Did You Mean..?"
>>
>> There are some situations where it's fairly clear what a user meant to
>> do, even though they did not do that thing correctly. For example, if a
>> user runs `git commit` with tracked, modified, unstaged files in their
>> worktree, but no staged files at all, it's fairly likely that they
>> simply forgot to add the files they wanted. In this case, the error
>> message is slightly obtuse:
>>
>> $ git commit
>> On branch master
>> Changes not staged for commit:
>> 	modified:   foo.txt
>>
>> no changes added to commit
>>
>>
>> Since we have an idea of what the user _meant_ to do, we can offer
>> something more like:
>>
>> $ git commit
>> On branch master
>> Changes not staged for commit:
>> 	modified:   foo.txt
>>
>> Stage listed changes and continue? [Y/n]
>>
>> While the above case is a good starting place, other similar cases can
>> be added afterwards if time permits. These helper prompts should be
>> enabled/disabled via a config option so that people who are used to
>> their current workflow won't be impacted.
>> """
> This is an interesting idea. At first I thought it might be too small
> for a project, but I think it could be expanded or contracted as much as
> the time allows by just looking for more "did you mean" spots.
>
> I have mixed feelings on making things interactive. For one, it gets
> awkward when Git commands are called as part of a script or other
> program (and a lot of programs like git-commit ride the line of plumbing
> and porcelain). I know this would kick in only when a config option is
> set, but I think that might things even _more_ confusing, as something
> that works for one user (without the config) would start behaving
> weirdly for another.
>
> I also think it might be an opportunity to educate. Instead of giving a
> yes/no prompt, we can actually recommend one (or more!) sets of commands
> to get the desired effect. I _thought_ we already did for this case by
> default (triggered by advice.statusHints, which is true by default). But
> it looks like those don't get printed for git-commit?
>
> -Peff
Also there is a lot of common problems and issues that can be mined from 
StackOverflow for similar "Did You Mean..?"user problems.

Philip