git annoyances: git fetch does nothing; git pull works?

[Jeremy White]

Dan Kegel wrote:
> On 7/12/06, Marcus Meissner <marcus at jet.franken.de> wrote:
> 
>> > OK, call me a git, but
>> >   git fetch
>> > doesn't grab the latest changes, while
>> >   git pull

My understanding is that git fetch only operates
on the underlying database of source objects, but does
not change the currently checked out branch.

The pattern I always followed was:
  git fetch <source-server>
     (retrieve new objects from a source)
  git rebase <source-branch> <my-current-branch>
     (change my current branch by applying new
      patches from the source-branch).

e.g.
  git fetch winehq
  git rebase winehq master

I gather some folks do prefer to use pull; I don't
understand the difference, to be honest.

But I have to confess that git makes my head hurt.
That just could be because this old dog can't learn this
trick.  But I think the fundamental problem is that
the git data structure is a radical new approach to SCM,
and the tools are not very refined.  So the tools make
sense if you grok the structure of git, and make much less
sense if you don't.  What's more, the tools don't
have a whole lot of safety catches on them, so it's pretty
easy to cut yourself while learning.  Luckily, most things
seem to be undoable as well, although figuring out how
to undo is a @#$@#$.  Pulling a new archive is probably easier,
although you should never need to do that, in theory.

I'll let you know if that's right if I ever grok the
structure... :-/

Cheers,

Jeremy