Re: Git commit won't add an untracked file given on the command line

Daniel Barkalow [off-list ref] writes:

I don't think that's what Mark wants, in this case. He's looking for the 
ability to have "git commit" act on a temporary index created by adding to 
the parent commit explicitly named files which aren't in the non-temporary 
index.

Ah, I think that it would not be an entirely unreasonable thing to do
(cf. Message-Id: [ref]).

You can say "git add that/directory" and .gitignore mechanism protects you
from crufts in that/directory, so fearing "git commit that/directory" to
add random junk to the next commit is not a reason to fear it.

But that is a huge behaviour change.  For example, I have a handful test
scripts in my t/ directory (all named following the usual t????-*.sh
naming convention) that I do not want to commit.  Today, after making
changes to the tracked test scripts, I can rely on "git commit t/" not to
include them in the commit, and I've _learned_ to trust that behaviour.
I'd be surprised if others who have used git for more than a few months
haven't done so as well.

Allowing what Mark wants without any explicit user customization will be a
disaster to the end user experience.