command return values

btw, the "faq" link on http://git-scm.com/ is broken.

I'm finding that "git clone" doesn't return useful error codes, e.g.
trying to clone from a bad repository.  Also, it doesn't abort if you
try to clone a branch that doesn't exist. The command succeeds,
leaving you with the wrong result. I haven't found a way to tell when
the command really succeeds, except for scraping the output.

What's the deal?

b.c.