Re: [lmi] Branching to replace XSL-FO

[Greg Chicares]

On 2017-10-28 00:56, Vadim Zeitlin wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Oct 2017 00:27:32 +0000 Greg Chicares <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> just do, when you're on your branch:
> 
>       $ git checkout vz-no-xslfo '*.mst'
>       $ git commit -m 'Create template files'
[...]
> GC> I can check out your branch:
> GC>   git checkout vz-no-xslfo

AFAICT, git-checkout does starkly different things in different contexts:

$git checkout gwc-no-xslfo
This switches from one branch to another, without changing any contents.

$git checkout vz-no-xslfo '*.mst'
This takes some files from the named branch and puts them in the current
branch, without switching branches.

There are two concepts here that are utterly distinct in my mind:

(1) switching among branches--i.e., just moving the asterisk here:

$git branch
  gwc-no-xslfo
* master
  vz-no-xslfo

(2) copying files across branches

and it pains me terribly to think that a single command serves both
purposes depending on whether or not I add an extra argument. Please
tell me I'm worrying over nothing.

Maybe this make sense if we think of git-checkout as fundamentally
meaning "change the working copy":

(a) git checkout X.txt
Replace working copy of named file with last commit.

(b) git checkout X.branch
Replace entire working copy with the set of files a branch contains.

(c) git checkout X.branch X.txt
Replace working copy of named file with the version last committed on
named branch.

Apparently it has multiple meanings, by deliberate design...

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout
"Switch branches or restore working tree files"

....and, as with C++'s 'static' keyword, we must simply accept a
conflation of orthogonal concepts.