Re: Usability of git stash

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

  git checkout next ;# which is where I usually am anyway
  hack hack hack
  # oops, I have been building this directly on top of next and it
  # really needs to be a feature-branch on maint
  git stash
  git checkout -b jk/maint-fix-whatever origin/maint
  git stash apply

The equivalent non-stash commands would be "commit -m wip" and
"cherry-pick". But the stash saves me the trouble later of having to
delete the wip cruft on top of next.

The equivalent would be:

	git checkout -m -b jk/maint-fix-whatever origin/maint

no need for stash, wip-commit, nor cherry-pick.

The advantage of using "stash then stash apply" (not "stash pop") or
"wip-commit with cherry-pick" is that you can reset, take a deep breath,
and redo it, when the resulting merge conflict gets too hairy.

I disagree. I think the strength of stash is that it is divorced from
the history. So it is more like a cherry-pick (or diff | apply, which is
what it was intended to replace).

I agree with you; it really is the "diff saved somewhere, later applied".