Re: Using the --track option when creating a branch

* Andreas Ericsson [off-list ref] [2008-10-30 15:54:53 +0100]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't my suggestion of not trying to
push (even matching) branches that haven't been updated since we last
fetched from the remote do exactly the same thing for your particular
use-case, but without syntax change and all the annoying minor parts
that it entails?

Not exactly. I often do some work on a branch which does not mandate
a topic branch and have to switch branches to fix a bug for example.
This would continue to push unterminated changes as well.

Typical use case, which happens (to me) quite frequently:

  % git checkout master
  [start new feature, estimated implementation time 15 minutes]
  % git commit -m "Reorganize foobar in previous of xyzzy."
    (note that I'm not sure that I will keep it, I'll know that later
    when my next commit is ready, maybe in 10 minutes, no need for
    a topic branch)
  [mail from a customer, "I noticed some strange behaviour here" --
   let's fix it]
  % git checkout 2.0-beta1-release-candidate
  [fix strange behaviour and add new test]
  [test locally]
  % git commit -m "Fix strange behaviour baz."
  % git push
    (so that it goes to the buildfarm for QA testing)

Argh, "master" has been pushed as well. Ok, I could have done

  % git branch
    (because I know I am on the right branch but do not necessarily
     remember its full name all the time)
  % git push origin 2.0-beta1-release-candidate

or I could have started a topic branch, but I often push 2 or 3
commits at a time instead, the first one being a refactoring of
existing code to ease the subsequent one.

From what I have seen, people I am working with often have the

same workflow (do not systematically start a topic branch when
in active development mode)

Define "many". Perhaps as often as 2-3 times per day. Not very often,
but frequent enough that I definitely want some short sweet way of
doing it. OTOH, I also find the "rejected" messages annoying, and I
definitely feel one could do something about them. However, it's my
birthday today and I plan on being far too drunk/hungover the entire
weekend for me to take any actions in that direction.

Happy birthday :)