Re: [PATCH v2] pull: require choice between rebase/merge on non-fast-forward pull

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
To: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Cc: Git List <git@vger.kernel.org>, John Keeping <john@keeping.me.uk>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
	Andreas Krey <a.krey@gmx.de>,
	John Szakmeister <john@szakmeister.net>,
	Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org>,
	Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] pull: require choice between rebase/merge on non-fast-forward pull
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 09:22:43 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <7vy592wmcs.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAPig+cTXn4hdKoCjnNXmybNxYt0Bt_QuxsfFxiA5b0J1FxUUmQ@mail.gmail.com> (Eric Sunshine's message of "Thu, 18 Jul 2013 20:54:16 -0400")

Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:

>> +When `git pull` that does not explicitly specify what branch from
>> +which repository is to be integrated with your history on the
>> +command line, recent Git will refuse to work until you specify how
>> +that integration should happen, either with a command line option
>> +(`--merge` or `--rebase`) or a configuration variable (`pull.rebase`
>> +or `branch.<name>.rebase`, which is the same as `--merge`
>> +(`--rebase`) when set to `false` (`true`) respectively.
>
> This paragraph-long single sentence may be intimidating. Perhaps some
> simplification is possible:
>
>     As a safety measure, bare `git pull` (without repository or
>     branch) needs to be told how to integrate pulled changes with
>     your history; either via `--merge` or `--rebase`.  Also see
>     configuration variables `pull.rebase` and `branch.<name>.rebase`
>     in linkgit:git-config[1].
>
> I intentionally omitted the true/false explanation of the
> configuration variables since the user can follow the link and read
> about them. It also may make sense to drop mention of those variables
> altogether since they are already described (including link) in the
> description of --rebase.
>
> I also intentionally omitted "recent Git" since it's rather nebulous.

Looks much better than the original.  I would further suggest
dropping the "As a safety measure, bare " at the beginning.

      `git pull` (without repository or branch on the command line)
      needs to be told how to integrate the changes with your
      history via either `--merge` or `--rebase` (see configuration
      variables `pull.rebase` and `branch.<name>.rebase` in
      linkgit:git-config[1]).

perhaps?