Re: git pull fails with merge conflicts. How can this possibly happen?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 12:41:12 +0700
> From: Yuri Khan <address@hidden>
> Cc: Emacs developers <address@hidden>, David Caldwell <address@hidden>
> 
> On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 3:54 AM, Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > gitk doesn't work on my system, of course.  (Nothing ever does without a
> > lot of effort).
> 
> I want to propose a couple of rules of thumb for beginner Git users.

I'm sorry, but after using Git for a year on several live projects, I
cannot disagree more with your rules.  They in fact make a research
project from each synchronization with upstream and each browsing of
the commit history.  There's no justification for such complexity,
certainly not for beginners.  Your suggestions are in fact
anti-pedagogical, because they turn the learning process on its head:
instead of starting with simple stuff, then gradually learning more
and deeper, you suggest that they start with the complex stuff first.
This makes very little sense to me.

I don't use gitk or anything similar, and yet I have no problems
looking at the commit log.  I don't feel blind.  I also never needed
to use 'fetch', except exactly once, when Andreas deleted a branch --
something that shouldn't happen frequently, so it's an exception
rather than the rule.  No problems with "git pull" here, none
whatsoever.  (And yes, from my 1-year experience place I do know about
the pitfalls of 'pull', I just never saw them in any of the projects
I'm involved in.  Spreading FUD of the kind that you did about 'pull'
is IMO making a disservice to those whom you want to help.)

Bottom line, if the beginners follow some simple workflow, like the
one written on the Wiki, they will never get themselves in trouble
with 'log' and 'pull'.

Mind you, I come from the same population of the confused whom you are
trying to teach here: my mind still doesn't wrap itself easily around
Git semantics, and I still don't feel comfortable with Git as I do
with bzr and CVS.  But I can assure everyone here that Yuri's rules do
not need to be followed in order to use Git correctly and almost
seamlessly.  Just find your preferred workflow, document it in some
notes if you don't trust your memory, and follow it every day.  You
don't need to know any fancy complicated commands.