On 14 February 2013 15:36, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> That is, currently git add defaults to not staging file deletions, and >> we provide command line flags to include them. The consensus in the >> thread is that it is better to stage them by default; it seems >> reasonable to me that if we stage deletions by default we should >> provide flags to _not_ stage them. If that was the entirety of the >> change, would your position from that thread, "if we need this >> optional, then it is not worth doing this", still hold? > > If that is the change we are going to make, and if you can guarantee > that nobody who is used to the historical behaviour will complain, > then I am fine with it, but I think the latter part of the condition > will not hold. Does the impossibility of asserting that no-one will complain put this in the 'too hard' bucket? >> Some people would be adversely affected by this change, but any >> objections I can come up with are not game stoppers. >> - It is possible newcomers might stumble at deleted files being staged >> for commit by a command called 'add',... > > New people are fair game; we haven't trained them with the > "inconsistent" behaviour, and the default being different from > historical behaviour will not affect them adversely. > >> - For people who rely heavily on file deletions remaining out of the >> index, providing a flag allows them to keep their workflow. > > Allowing to do the things they used to be able to do is a bare > minimum. You are still forcing them to do things differently. The implication here is that a relatively small number of people will be inconvenienced by needing to specify extra flags/set up an alias. Compare this to the many for whom the expected behaviour is now default, and we have a net win. >> Finally, making this change makes sense from a consistency point of >> view. > > That is a given. Otherwise we wouldn't be even discussing this. Obviously I agree. I was actually bringing up a point about patch mode and it got incorporated into the bigger picture; patch mode includes deletions by default and I don't even know if you can turn that behaviour off. So, when we talk about git add -u and git add -A, we should also mention git add -p. Regards, Andrew Ardill -- 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