Re: Cleaning up git user-interface warts

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:30:55 -0800 (PST), Linus Torvalds wrote:
> The form I use is actually a lot simpler (conceptually) than the "short"
> form.
>
> When you do
>
> 	git pull <reponame> <branchname>

Yes, that's what the user almost always wants. The UI problem here is
that the conceptually simpler form is syntactically longer, (which
means users aren't likely to find it).

So if we can just get <reponame> and <branchname> to default
correctly, (based on the current branch name, and clone/fetch/pull
history), then the conceptually simple form ends up syntactically
simple as "git pull".

And I definitely don't have any problem with that. I'd love to be able
to teach that kind of simple thing to new users.

> driver tree, and because I'm always on that branch, what I do is
>
> 	git pull origin modesetting
...
> Well, as mentioned, I think even for non-developers, doing pulls with
> explicit branchnames is actually perfectly sane.

The behavior is sane, but having to always type the branch name
specifically because it never changes... that's a user-interface bug.

This is a good example of the kind of thing I wanted to hit when
starting this thread. I don't think there are any big conceptual
changes needed in git to make it easier for new users. But there are
little things that are problems that really should be fixed. Wouldn't
it be great to have the following exchange:

	User: How do I track on-going development in a branch?
	Master: Use "git pull"

Rather than:

	User: How do I track on-going development in a branch?
	Master Use "git pull origin <name-of-branch-you-are-already-on>"

?

-Carl

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