4 ms·

No, “! [rejected] master -> master (non-fast forward)” is not intuitive. The example you give is one of the pleasantly surprising examples of a good error

No, “! [rejected] master -> master (non-fast forward)” is not intuitive. The example you give is one of the pleasantly surprising examples of a good error message from git. But, by and large, git's error messages are pretty awful.

jrockway 16y ago
What else should a one-line summary of syncing master -> master say? "Hello dear user. The remote server refuses to accept your branch, because it would delete information. As a result, your request has been rejected. Please rebase and try again. If you need help, hang up, and then dial your operator." Personally, I am fine with [rejected]. I figured it out, after all...
- stevelosh 16y ago
  Mercurial says this in the same situation: abort: push creates new remote heads on branch 'default'! (you should pull and merge or use push -f to force) Yes, it's two lines. I think we all have large enough monitors now that an extra line of output to be a bit friendlier is a good thing.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Where does it end? Should a compiler say "unknown identifier 'foo': perhaps you need to import a header file that defines foo, or spell it better, or write code that works instead of this garbage" instead of a simple "unknown identifier: foo"? No. You just look up the error in the manual, and never think about it again.
    - ryanpetrich 16y ago
      LLVM will attempt to guess the proper name of a misspelled identifier for you: http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/amazing-feats-of-clang-error-recovery.html#spell_checker http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/amazing-feats-of-clang-error-re...
    - phaylon 16y ago
      It theoretically ends where it's most comfortable for a wide range of people, experienced or not. And hyperbole doesn't help. Telling me to pull first so it can incorporate the remote changes isn't a big deal I think. Where does this idea come from that the interface has to be cryptic? If it isn't in there because nobody has done it, fine, that's cool and understandable. Actively arguing against better user messages is simply weird to me.
gte910h 16y ago
1> Intuitive is not everything 2> To actually make said message more intuitive, it could have a "type git help error ffwd for an explanation"

jrockway 16y ago

What else should a one-line summary of syncing master -> master say? "Hello dear user. The remote server refuses to accept your branch, because it would delete information. As a result, your request has been rejected. Please rebase and try again. If you need help, hang up, and then dial your operator." Personally, I am fine with [rejected]. I figured it out, after all...

stevelosh 16y ago
Mercurial says this in the same situation: abort: push creates new remote heads on branch 'default'! (you should pull and merge or use push -f to force) Yes, it's two lines. I think we all have large enough monitors now that an extra line of output to be a bit friendlier is a good thing.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Where does it end? Should a compiler say "unknown identifier 'foo': perhaps you need to import a header file that defines foo, or spell it better, or write code that works instead of this garbage" instead of a simple "unknown identifier: foo"? No. You just look up the error in the manual, and never think about it again.
  - ryanpetrich 16y ago
    LLVM will attempt to guess the proper name of a misspelled identifier for you: http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/amazing-feats-of-clang-error-recovery.html#spell_checker http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/amazing-feats-of-clang-error-re...
  - phaylon 16y ago
    It theoretically ends where it's most comfortable for a wide range of people, experienced or not. And hyperbole doesn't help. Telling me to pull first so it can incorporate the remote changes isn't a big deal I think. Where does this idea come from that the interface has to be cryptic? If it isn't in there because nobody has done it, fine, that's cool and understandable. Actively arguing against better user messages is simply weird to me.

gte910h 16y ago

1> Intuitive is not everything 2> To actually make said message more intuitive, it could have a "type git help error ffwd for an explanation"