On 2026-01-30 22:42 (-4), Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 10:02:14 -0400, Cousin Ricky wrote:
>>> On 2026-01-26 02:00 (-4), Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> But it looks like the file is tracked, so any changes to it made in one
>>>> branch shouldn't affect other branches,
> 
> Are we confusing our usage of 'change' perhaps? A 'change' to a file (in
> git-speak) refers to an edit, without any git interaction, which is what I've
> been assuming. A change to a branch is usually called a 'commit', and that will
> indeed be unique to the branch.
> 
>>> I'm sensing disagreement in what "tracked" means.  Jim is using
>>> "tracked" the way I've understood it, but Bill is describing the
>>> behavior I'm seeing from git.
> 
> I think git itself may also be confusing the issue here. 'Tracked' just means
> the file has been added to the repo. If I add a new file to a project (without
> git interaction - just make a new file within a repo), it is listed as
> 'untracked' because it does not yet have an entry in the repo - its entire
> contents are a 'change'. If I 'git add' and then 'git commit' that file, it is
> then 'tracked' as part of that branch from that point on. But you could say that
> even an 'untracked' file is tracked in the sense of git being aware of it,
> because it appears in the status. Only files/directories in .gitignore are truly
> untracked because edits to them will be ignored.
> 
> Uncommitted changes (i.e. edits to a file) will not be affected by switching
> branches, unless there is a conflict - i.e. if the edits apply to a section of a
> file that is different in the two branches. In that case, git will not switch
> branches, but instead tell you to commit or 'stash' your changes before
> switching (stashing is saving your changes on a temp stack rather than
> committing them).
> 
> Sorry if I'm muddying the water here! I remember being quite confused about how
> git worked when I first started using it.

No, this is very helpful!  Thank you!

(And I just watched a video about how pilots and air traffic controllers
unknowingly disagreed on definitions of terms, and the result was a
major crash, all souls lost.)

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