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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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git: you're explaining it wrong 6 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • I've looked at switching/using git at least twice in the last six months or so. Lately, it seems that native Win32 support is improving so that hurdle I had is dropping.

    I get most of it, conceptually, but I find some parts of the application of it confusing. It desperately needs more cookbooks, more examples of "here's how I work with it day to day" and not just by Linux kernel developers who are (a) highly-technical already and (b) managing a vast, decentralized project with their own particular legacy

    • The “-a” switch is because git has an indirection between the working copy and the repository: the index, ie. a commit-ready snapshot of the tree. You don’t commit the state of the working copy directly; you copy things from the working copy to the index (this is called staging), and then commit the index. If you make a change in the working copy but you do not stage it, a plain commit will not contain the change from the working copy. Explicit staging is done using git-add.

      The “-a

      • Your explanation made my eyes start to glaze. :) Until the end, it's just begging the question, but with some jargon. That's a bit of the problem I saw, when posting. Of course, I know I do the same thing all the time, and I see it in all places. I think Schwern just posted something about it with p5p: people say, "It's that way because $something_stupid." Well... so... is that a good reason?

        I think I'd be more interested in hearing you (or other git users) expound on whether the -a is a good or bad th
        --
        rjbs

        • The reasons that it exists are pretty obvious: that’s how you stage commits.

          Sorry, but now it’s you making assumptions. When someone who has only ever seen tutorials asks “why the -a,” I cannot presume that they know git makes a distinction between the working copy and what gets committed. So I can’t talk about its value before laying out the facts, which resulted in two paragraphs of expository prelude.

          And indeed, judging by David’s reply, he appreciated the tack I

          • What I meant was: I'd be more interested in hearing your opinion on whether it's the right design decision (-a for all, rather than, say, -f for certain files) based on your usage. That is: if it implies that you should rarely use -a because you should be using git add, do you personally think that's a great way to work?
            --
            rjbs
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