Re: Pull is Mostly Evil

["Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org>]

From: "Marc Branchaud" <marcnarc@xiplink.com>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2014 4:37 PM
> (Apologies for not CCing all the folks who've participated in the 
> "Pull is
> Evil" thread -- I couldn't find a good branch of that thread for this 
> message.)
>
> OK, so maybe "git pull" is just Mostly Evil.  People seem to have 
> found many
> different ways to make it work for them.
>
> But in reality "git pull" has become a chimera that confuses a large 
> number
> of new users, and that experienced users either avoid entirely or 
> customize
> to give them a convenient shorthand for working in their particular
> environment.  As a tool for new git users, it just doesn't seem to be
> achieving its goals.
>
> I think the git project as a whole would benefit if it started to 
> treat "git
> pull" as an advanced command, in the sense that it needs to be 
> configured by
> an experienced user in order to make it correctly follow a project's
> workflow.  Once it's configured properly, "git pull" is a powerful 
> tool that
> gives users an easy way to do complex things.  In that sense, it may 
> be
> appropriate for a project to tailor "git pull" as it likes, then teach 
> its
> own users to use the command.
>
> However, when it comes to teaching people how to use git qua git, "git 
> pull"
> should be the last thing they learn about, because it's only after you
> understand various basic git concepts that you can configure "git 
> pull" to do
> the right thing.
>
> To that end, I suggest that pull's default behaviour should be to do
> *nothing*.  It should just print out a message to the effect that it 
> hasn't
> been configured, and that the user should run "git help pull" for 
> guidance.
>
I tend to agree.
The hard part is making sure folk have enough prior learning to make a 
choice that their will fit their real needs.

> It'll take quite a bit of time, but I think that if we change our 
> attitude
> towards "git pull" and take this unconfigured-by-default approach, 
> then in a
> few years the entire git ecosystem will be in a better place.
>
> M.
> --
Philip