From: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>
To: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: git annoyances
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 15:21:04 -0400 (EDT) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.LNX.1.00.0804091442190.19665@iabervon.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20080409101428.GA2637@elte.hu>
On Wed, 9 Apr 2008, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>
> i just had a rather annoying session with git - here's the dump and
> commentary, in case anyone is interested in usability fineprint.
>
> it was with git-core-1.5.4.3-2.fc8 - so if it's all fixed/improved in
> 1.5.5, or if this is blatant user error for which i deserve to be
> punished then my apologies!
>
> usually i just have a single git repo that tracks everything
> interesting, but this time i did something i rarely do: i tried to merge
> one local tree of mine into another local tree of mine. So i had no
> commands (or even concepts) cached in my short-term memory that would
> achieve this goal, i just tried the commands that i thought to be
> 'obvious', without applying much (or any) IQ to those commands:
>
> $ cd linux-2.6-sched-devel.git
>
> $ git-remote add ~/linux-2.6-x86.git
>
> $ git-remote show x86
> * remote x86
> URL: /home/mingo/linux-2.6-x86.git
> New remote branches (next fetch will store in remotes/x86)
> base for-akpm for-linus latest master testing
Good so far.
> $ git-merge x86/latest
> x86/latest - not something we can merge
Git is missing the fact that, while refs/remotes/x86/latest doesn't exist,
there is a fetch rule that would create it. It should suggest "git fetch
x86" or "git fetch x86 latest". This is a bit tricky, because you've used
a shorthand for something that doesn't exist, so there isn't a unique
answer for which full name you're looking for, but there is a unique
solution (in this case) for which one could be created by a pattern you
have.
> #
> # ho hum. Not something 'we' can merge. Do i care? :-) There's no
> # actionable reference given to the user about how to resolve this
> # problem. So i kept on trying:
> #
>
> $ git-fetch x86/latest
> fatal: 'x86/latest': unable to chdir or not a git archive
> fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
The right error message here would probably be:
/home/mingo/linux-2.6-sched-devel.git/x86/latest: No such file or directory
That should at least tell you what git thinks, incorrectly, that you want
it to do, and why it doesn't work.
> what got me going after experimenting around some more was this exact
> command:
>
> $ git-pull x86 latest
>
> (that fetch+merge went problem-free.)
>
> but it was a PITA and all of git's messages about the problem were not
> only unhelpful, they confused me into looking for problems where there
> were none IMO. I was starting to wonder whether i have to have some git
> daemon running on that box for example. But in retrospect IMO it was
> rather clear from the outset what i wanted git to do (merge the tip of
> my other tree into the tip of this tree, on the local box, no frills), i
> just didnt figure out the exact command to do it.
>
> another (minor) usability annoyance: one of the first things i tried was
> to verify the remote setup, via:
>
> $ git-remote show
>
> which gave me this answer:
>
> Usage: git remote show <remote>
>
> then i tried git-remote show -a (to list all repositories, etc.) - what
> i didnt figure out was to show all repositories is to do a simple
> "git-remote". I think "git-remote show" should output all repositories,
> or at least indicate it in its help line what to do to get such a list.
> (for us poor sobs forgetting commandline details ;)
>
> also, the first natural thing i did was to just type:
>
> $ git-merge ~/linux-2.6-x86.git/
>
> which i naively assumed would sort things out for me and provide some
> reasonable default behavior - but instead it just gave an annoyingly
> unhelpful error message:
>
> /home/mingo/linux-2.6-x86.git/ - not something we can merge
>
> there should really be a consciously established "route of failure
> resolution" - directing people towards relevant sources of information
> or commands when the git command-line utilities return some error due to
> user incompetence. Otherwise users just guess around and get frustrated.
I'm not sure we can figure out what the user actually meant in this case;
there's just too much overlap in namespaces to determine reliably that you
were giving it a remote repository on the local filesystem rather than
anything else.
-Daniel
*This .sig left intentionally blank*
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2008-04-09 19:22 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 86+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2008-04-09 10:14 git annoyances Ingo Molnar
2008-04-09 10:41 ` Björn Steinbrink
2008-04-09 14:57 ` Jeff King
2008-04-09 15:15 ` [PATCH] git-remote: show all remotes with "git remote show" Jeff King
2008-04-09 16:54 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-04-10 10:56 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-09 20:07 ` Ingo Molnar
2008-04-10 19:59 ` Ingo Molnar
2008-04-09 17:08 ` git annoyances Avery Pennarun
2008-04-10 8:41 ` Karl Hasselström
2008-04-10 15:05 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-04-11 7:00 ` Karl Hasselström
2008-04-09 20:08 ` Friendly refspecs (Was: Re: git annoyances) Teemu Likonen
2008-04-09 20:32 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-04-09 20:34 ` Jeff King
2008-04-09 22:25 ` Teemu Likonen
2008-04-09 22:51 ` Jeff King
2008-04-10 0:03 ` Jeff King
2008-04-10 0:11 ` Jeff King
2008-04-10 7:51 ` Friendly refspecs Junio C Hamano
2008-04-10 8:03 ` Jeff King
[not found] ` <bd6139dc0804091616k53f4e0c1sf75aa9585c5a54c5@mail.gmail.com>
2008-04-10 0:33 ` Friendly refspecs (Was: Re: git annoyances) Jeff King
2008-04-10 7:58 ` Sverre Rabbelier
2008-04-13 9:31 ` Friendly refspecs Teemu Likonen
2008-04-13 9:34 ` [PATCH] Add examples section to 'git fetch' manual Teemu Likonen
2008-04-13 18:56 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-13 19:48 ` Matt Graham
2008-04-13 20:05 ` Teemu Likonen
2008-04-14 1:02 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-16 3:48 ` Friendly refspecs Jeff King
2008-04-16 4:25 ` Jeff King
2008-04-16 4:41 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-16 4:47 ` Jeff King
2008-04-16 15:42 ` Daniel Barkalow
2008-04-16 20:03 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-22 10:56 ` Jeff King
2008-04-22 16:52 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-22 17:19 ` Daniel Barkalow
2008-04-22 20:12 ` Jeff King
2008-04-22 20:05 ` Jeff King
2008-04-22 20:45 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-22 21:52 ` Jeff King
2008-04-23 4:24 ` Teemu Likonen
2008-04-23 5:52 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-23 6:24 ` Andreas Ericsson
2008-04-23 9:16 ` Jeff King
2008-04-23 9:21 ` Jeff King
2008-04-23 11:15 ` Teemu Likonen
2008-04-09 21:21 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-10 7:38 ` Teemu Likonen
2008-04-12 18:59 ` git annoyances Santiago Gala
2008-04-09 19:21 ` Daniel Barkalow [this message]
2008-04-09 20:41 ` Ingo Molnar
2008-04-10 14:08 ` Daniel Barkalow
2008-04-09 21:04 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-09 21:39 ` Jon Loeliger
2008-04-09 23:45 ` Nicolas Pitre
2008-04-09 21:45 ` Jeff King
2008-04-09 23:56 ` André Goddard Rosa
2008-04-10 19:45 ` Govind Salinas
2008-04-10 6:08 ` Jean-Christian de Rivaz
2008-04-10 8:19 ` Sverre Rabbelier
2008-04-10 11:47 ` git-bisect annoyances Ingo Molnar
2008-04-11 5:41 ` Christian Couder
2008-04-11 11:41 ` Ingo Molnar
2008-04-12 6:56 ` Christian Couder
2008-04-11 5:56 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-10 23:25 ` [PATCH] When a remote is added but not fetched, tell the user Gabriel
2008-04-11 15:21 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-04-11 18:35 ` Gabriel
2008-04-11 18:39 ` [PATCH] Default to fetching a remote after adding it Gabriel
2008-04-11 19:17 ` Stephen Sinclair
2008-04-12 14:33 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-04-12 15:13 ` Gabriel
2008-04-12 15:24 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-04-11 19:08 ` [PATCH] When a remote is added but not fetched, tell the user Teemu Likonen
2008-04-11 21:39 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-11 22:35 ` Sverre Rabbelier
2008-04-11 23:15 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-04-11 23:20 ` Sverre Rabbelier
2008-04-15 3:15 ` Miles Bader
2008-04-11 19:29 ` [PATCH] Default to fetching a remote after adding it Gabriel
2008-04-11 19:36 ` Wincent Colaiuta
2008-04-11 19:46 ` Gabriel
2008-04-11 10:15 ` git annoyances Luciano Rocha
2008-04-11 10:27 ` Wincent Colaiuta
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=alpine.LNX.1.00.0804091442190.19665@iabervon.org \
--to=barkalow@iabervon.org \
--cc=git@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=mingo@elte.hu \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).