Re: [Census] So who uses git?

Hi,

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Joel Becker wrote:

On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 11:21:52AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:

quoted

Now, I do agree. I don't actually like hiding the index too much. 
Understanding the index is _invaluable_ whenever you're doing a merge with 
conflicts, and understanding what tools are available to you to resolve 
those conflicts.

	This is precisely the experience I've had explaining GIT to
folks moving to it.  The simplest workflow (clone; hack one file, commit
one file) is so similar to CVS/Subversion/Anything that it's immediately
understood.  But when pull, push, merge, and any non-linear history are
discussed, I have to describe the index and the commit/tree layout.
Once I do, they get it.

quoted

So I'm actually of the "revel in the index" camp (as could probably be 
guessed by the original tutorial).

	I'm going to second this, from a real-world "explain it to
others" standpoint.

How about talking about the index a bit at the end of tutorial.txt like 
this:

-- snip --
For a number of (mostly technical) reasons, "git diff" does not show the 
changes of the current working directory with respect to the latest 
commit, but rather to an intermediate stage: the "index".

Think of the index as a staging area just before committing: the commit 
object (and the tree and blob objects referenced from it) are assembled 
there.

Also, when you checkout, the index is used to disassemble the commit 
object just before writing the corresponding files and directories.
-- snap --

May this be worth the work?

Ciao,
Dscho