RE: switch requires --detach [[Re: What actually is a branch]]

On July 9, 2021 12:21 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:

Martin wrote:

quoted

On 09/07/2021 17:08, Felipe Contreras wrote:

quoted

and the fact that
`git switch` expects branches is one of the things that bothers me
about it.

Ah, good point.

I would word it differently though.
"git switch forces the use of --detach if switching to a non branch"

Bit of a twist.
It's a nice safety for beginners. I remember when I started, I kept
ending up detached. And I had no idea what to do next.

Yes, and that's a good thing, but there's no need to cripple advaned users.

quoted

But once you are a bit more experienced the need to add that option
can be bothersome.
It's not common in my workflow, but I can see that it can be an issue.

So how to remedy?

- Drop the option / Make it default?

No. As you noted it has value for beginners.

quoted

- add --allow-detach  and git config switch.detach allow ?

That's a good option, but another one would be to have a core.advanced mode, you turn it on if you are an advanced user.

quoted

I don't really have a preference.

I think its a nice protection, but even without it, the warning on
entering detached HEAD state is pretty good.

That warning olny appears with `git checkout`, not with `git switch --detach`.

quoted

There is also a curious side effect.

If you went into detached, you can go back to attached using
   git switch -

but not back to detached by again doing
   git switch -

Even though you had been there, and that means you had used
--detached, and therefore known what you did.

That's definitely a bug.

In all of this discussion, please be aware that many CI/CD systems use sparse checkout and detached heads as a matter of efficiency and certainty. Please ensure that you are not changing the semantics of existing capabilities when restricting what `git switch` will do. I am concerned about the 280,342 (as of this minute) current Jenkins users who depend on this.

Thanks,
Randall