Re: [PATCH] builtin-branch: highlight current remote branches with an asterisk

On 2009.02.09 18:32:06 -0500, Jay Soffian wrote:

Teach git branch -{r,a} how to interpret remote HEADs and highlight the
corresponding remote branch with an asterisk, instead of showing literal
"<remote_name>/HEAD".

Hm, what's the use case for having such a marker? And since only "git
clone" sets up origin/HEAD, while "git remote add foo git://..." won't
create foo/HEAD, you would get that marker for origin only. Also, the
origin/HEAD symref isn't updated, so it doesn't tell you which branch
is "active" in the remote repository now, but which one was active when
you cloned the repo.

So basically, what that marker would tell you is that you can use
"origin" as a short-shortname for the remote tracking branch that has
the marker. I don't see how that is very useful.

If the <name>/HEAD symref would be created for all remotes and would get
updated, that would at least make the marker more meaningful, but I
still don't really see what I'd use it for. From what I've heard, some
people just consider origin/HEAD a clone artifact without much use, and
so far, I think I agree. But maybe there's more to it?

Björn