On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 6:53 PM, Nicolas Pitre <nico@xxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, 2 Sep 2008, Johan Herland wrote: >> Vienna:git pieter$ ./git commit --allow-empty -m"test" >> You are on a detached head, so this commit would not be recorded in a >> branch. If you don't want to lose this commit, please switch to a (new) >> branch before committing. If you know what you're doing, and want to >> proceed on a detached HEAD, please enable commit.detached in your >> configuration (git config --global commit.detached true) >> >> ...but I sympathize with those that think this is overkill. > > This is going over board indeed. > > Adding commits to a detached head is _cool_, and it is also _useful_ in > many occasions. Let's not obfuscate that capability. > > Adding an extra line of warning when the commit is done is fine, but > more than that is too much IMHO. I think maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. The bad thing isn't committing to a detached HEAD; the bad thing is detaching the HEAD *by accident* in the first place. Why do people (including me) spend so much time with a detached HEAD? I think it happens mainly for the following reasons: 1) Checking out a remote branch "git checkout origin/master" detaches my HEAD, which is kind of bad, since it's such a common thing to want to do. And "git checkout -b master origin/master" is *not* actually what I want to do, *most* of the time. What I actually want is for git to remember that I'm on origin/master, but not let me change origin/master, because it's a remote branch. If I want to make changes, I need to first make a topic branch, with "git checkout -b topic". git should prevent me from committing until I do. 2) git-rebase and git-am detach the HEAD while they work. I think this is fine, but: you shouldn't be able to *reattach* the HEAD without first aborting the rebase or am operations. When I've lost my work, it's usually because I turned out to be in the middle of a rebase or am and forgot about it, then I checked out another branch and did some work, then ran git-rebase --abort, and oops! It moved me somewhere else. git should prevent me from switching branches when a rebase or am is in progress. 3) git-submodule detaches and moves the HEAD of submodules automatically. This is a whole separate discussion :) The remaining situations where someone is working on a detached HEAD (eg. checking out a particular commit, or actually implementing git-rebase like operations) seem to be pretty obviously *intentional*, and in that case, git should stay out of their way and let them do what they're doing. I believe the reason this is such a hotly debated topic is that people confuse situations #1 and #2, and try to apply the same solution to both. But in situation #1, you want to be able to switch branches; in situation #2, you want to be able to commit. They are different situations, even though technically the fact that "I'm on a detached HEAD!" is the same. Have fun, Avery -- 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
