If you have set up your staging area for a commit you may want to discard (unstage) changes from the staging area, as opposed to discarding changes in the working directory.

Of course, the difference between the two is obvious if you're using git CLI, but I can easily see someone using a GUI (and that maybe isn't too familiar with git) misunderstanding "discard" as "unstage".

Either way, what happened here indicates that all the files were somehow added to the VC, without having been committed first, or something like that, because git will not let you discard a file that is untracked, because that wouldn't make any sense. The fact that the GUI let this person delete a bunch of files without first committing them to the index is what makes this a terrible design choice, and also what makes the use of the word "discard" misleading.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

"Discard" is not a git operation.

[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ok fair enough, but I'm under the impression these files existed before the source control was implemented.

I guess it's all up to how the program handles existing files.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 4 points 4 days ago

I guess the newly created git repository was empty, and all the files that was present in the folder represented "changes"

[–] stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure vscode shows a confirmation dialog when discarding changes will permanently delete a file. I've done that recently with temporary files that were no longer needed.

[–] GreenAppleTree@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

I remember following the drama back in the day. That warning you saw was the result of this now-classic bug report.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

Did you even read the thread?

[–] stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago

the alternative to deleting is emptying the file contents, which is essentially the same...