On Wed, 15 Nov 2006 13:45:58 -0800 (PST), Linus Torvalds wrote:
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> On Wed, 15 Nov 2006, Carl Worth wrote:
> >
> > Well, one of the problems is that with current git I can teach, (and I
> > have), that there's a conceptual:
> >
> > 	pull = fetch + merge
> >
> > But then shortly after I have to teach an interface notion:
> >
> > 	merge = pull .
>
> This is why I would suggest teaching the _concept_ of the "merge", and not
> the actual command.
>
> I don't think you should basically ever use the "git merge" command
> itself, not in teaching, and not in real life.

I think that's just and accident of git-merge having such a bad
syntax, (requiring a merge message, not using -m for that, requiring
two heads instead of defaulting to current, etc.). So the result is
accepting another bad syntax "pull ." for an operation that really is
merge.

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> Once you've explained the _concept_ of merging, you then introduce the
> command to actually _execute_ the merge: it's "git pull".

I think we'll be doing better when there is a stronger correlation
between the concepts of the operations and the command names for
carrying them out.

Plus, when I'm teaching "fetch everything first, then manipulate it
locally", (which is what I teach, since that's the only way I use
git), then the "." looks really out of place when I teach the 'merge'
command. I end up saying, "Oh, that's there because you could do the
fetch and merge all in one step if you really wanted, but I never do
that.".

And that's because I _do_ teach fetch first, as you've suggested.

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> changes from both branches. So it's a _conceptual_ issue, and that's why I
> said I think you should just totally gloss over the whole issue of "git
> merge" syntax.

That doesn't work. I know I went looking at the git-merge
documentation when I started to learn git. "It can't really be this
hard, can it?" was my reaction to it. And then only after attending a
tutorial did I learn that "pull ." is the way it's really done.

That's nothing more than a user-interface trap for new users, plain
and simple.

The real fix is to stop glossing over git-merge and just give it a
usable syntax.

-Carl