Re: VC mode and git

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,
>     address@hidden
> Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2015 07:41:53 +0900
> 
> Eli Zaretskii writes:
> 
>  > Teaching people new things often requires to start without rigor,
>  > because otherwise you risk losing your audience.  Being
>  > "technically correct", but confusing instead of explanatory is not
>  > helpful.
> 
> Eli, you can't have it both ways.  When I use the shorthand common in
> the git community and defined in the glossary, you excoriate me for
> lack of rigor (in different but equivalent words).

It's a judgment call.  In this case, I think using a shorthand only
confuses things, since "commit" and "commit object" are really very
different beasts.  By "lack of rigor" I meant omitting details of
secondary importance to the issue at hand; confusion between 2
entities is IMO not one of them, at least not in this case.

>  > What they did say is (a) they don't like investing an inordinate
>  > amount of time and effort into studying Git, and (b) they would like
>  > to keep their previous workflows as much as possible.
> 
>  > So if we want to help them become proficient, we need to go with them
>  > and educate them while trying to honor these 2 desires.
> 
> My opinion that is that given what Richard and Alan apparently
> consider to be "inordinate effort", we are unlikely to get to a point
> where they know enough to make an informed decision.

Could be.  In which case they will stop at the level of a "cookbook
user", who memorizes commands without deep understanding of their real
effect, and instead relies on some simplified mental models.  Not
ideal, I agree, but not bad, either.  And then it's just a
possibility; there's still hope they will move ahead at some point.

>  > What he did became clear, even to me, after he showed the information
>  > we requested.
> 
> It did?  It's not clear to me.  I still haven't seen an explanation of
> how he ended up with a ton of modified files that he didn't touch, or
> how he's going to get past that safely.

We've been through that: those are files from the merge already in the
index, ready to be committed when the conflicts are resolved.

>  > > I wish you would write more posts like that.
>  > 
>  > Thanks, I'm trying.
> 
> You're welcome.  I hope you know there was absolutely zero sarcasm in
> the compliment.

Nope, taken at face value.

> There is no question in my mind that you have been the most
> level-headed contributor to this thread, although I disagree (even
> now) with some of the positions you've taken.

Disagreements are expected, due to different perspectives and the fact
that I don't know about Git as much as you do.  But at least I
gathered enough stuff in this thread to fix GitQuickStartForEmacsDevs,
to which I'd appreciate comments from everyone who has a moment to
spare.