Re: fatal: bad revision 'HEAD'

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

I.e., I have done in the past (but not frequently):

  git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/to-be-born

in an existing repository to create a new root.

I honestly do not know of a sane reason (other than "because I can")
anybody would want to _start_ a new root in a repository with an existing
history.  And doing a "pull" with or without --rebase immediately after
starting a new root is doubly insane, as you say.

I do not think _ending up to_ have more than one root in your repository
is necessarily insane.  You may find a related project that earlier
started independently but later turned out to be better off managed
together with your project, and at that point you may perform Linus's
"coolest merge ever" to bind the two histories together, resulting in a
history with more than one root.

But that is the kind of "ending up to have" I am talking about; it is not
something you _aim to_ create on purpose.  If you want to _start_ a
separate history, and if you are sane, you would start the separate
history in a separate repository.