On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 11:32 +0200, Alexei Sholik wrote: > I guess, people who are friendly with git using the word "index" > because it's easier to type. But it confuses an unprepared reader. The > solution of the problem with confusion must be relevant to these > points: > - clarify that "index" means the same thing as the "staging area" (in > man if it isn't there already?) Alas, this isn't quite true. Blobs are copied to the .git/objects directory (which I referred to earlier as an object store without proper qualification) with each "git add" action AND are noted in the Index at the same time. Therefore the Index is quite literally containing information about the blobs to be committed without containing the blobs themselves. This is why I find any specific equivalence between Index and "staging area" distasteful--it is misleading. (Yes, I made that mistake as well--helped along by a lot of third-party documentation referring to a specific cache or a specific "staging area" without noting that those were tools to understand the logical function of git but did not have anything to do with implementation. When you claim to be explaining "how something works" you should be doing just that.) -- -Drew Northup ________________________________________________ "As opposed to vegetable or mineral error?" -John Pescatore, SANS NewsBites Vol. 12 Num. 59 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html