I'm surprised no one has mentioned what is in my mind the cardinal sin of checkout: the parameter can be either a path or a ref and it automatically infers whic

I'm surprised no one has mentioned what is in my mind the cardinal sin of checkout: the parameter can be either a path or a ref and it automatically infers which one you mean. That's magic and relies on your ref namespace and your file namespace not conflicting (of course you can be explicit but no one is) I think if the "only operate on certain files" mode of checkout was a flag, it would be much less confusing and easier to explain and we never would have gotten into this mess to begin with.