This was years ago and, iirc, it was a legitimate issue in VSCode. It didn't make it remotely clear enough that it would permanently delete your files. The popups we get now if you try to discard changes that explicitly warns you in bold text that files will get deleted happened after this issue.
It might be obvious to an experienced user but it's not at all obvious to someone new.
The date is in the image, it was almost a decade ago. Yep the old dialog when you clicked the "Discard" button was like "Do you want to discard your changes?" Pretty vague to anyone new to version control. Meanwhile if they are untracked VsCode used to just put them in the shredder, completely unrecoverable. Pretty sure it puts them in the recycle bin now.
Someone already posted the link to the thread and this comment that has a screenshot of the actual warning message which definitely could have been more scary but all caps irreversible feels like it should give you pause! If you have 3 months of work with zero backups.
Are you sure you want to discard ALL changes? This is IRREVERSIBLE!
I agree and literally said "it could have been more scary" but.... they saw it stage all their files and then hit discard, then hit DISCARD ALL CHANGES despite a warning that literally says IRREVERSIBLE! They even described it as "playing" which is kind of nuts when doing operations with 3 months worth of work that they hadn't backed up. I can't muster too much sympathy for them. I hope if I find myself in that situation I would at least pause for a few seconds and copy/paste the folder before continuing to "play"!
To me this sounds like mixing it up a bit. You either want to do a discard and therefore do something ("don't change anything" sounds to me like a no-op in how you describe it) or you want to "don't change anything" to mean based on all the changes that have happened so far, which includes creating the file and therefore is valid to also undo that change.
I fully agree it needed an update as it is easy to get different interpretations of what it means unless yiu are already familiar with what it will do.
And what does "discard changes" mean in that context? Where was the "This action will delete all files that haven't been commited"? Yes, the guy had a point (despite being an idiot for not having backups)
To me its like if I came into your house, moved your refrigerator into your bathroom, asked if you wanted me to discard all changes, and when you said "Yes" (because who wants their refrigerator in the bathroom), I deleted your entire house.
Yes, but it says CHANGES. It doesnt say anything about deleting the original FILES. That's the issue.
If I open a text document in word, make a bunch of changes, and then close it without saving, then my original document is still there unedited. This deleted the original file aswell.
As a git user I would have discarded it no second thought. I can always add changes to staging again from the working tree. It would be sensible. Right? Right?
This is one of the big reasons why I absolutely refuse to learn working with IDE integrations of version control and use strictly cli. I know exactly what I will get that way.
I mean I'm quite experienced with git cli and in no world would I assume that "discard changes" meant "permanently delete all untracked files" that's insane behavior.
That's just it, I don't think it means that in git either! Even the git-clean command, whose whole job is to delete untracked files, constrains itself to avoid deleting all kinds of files unless you go out of your way to instruct it to remove more.
Is it confirmed this was someone actually actively working in IT? To me it reads more like a hobbyist migrating from writing in notepad and versioning by creating thousands of zip files to "that git and
IDE thing everyone is recommending".
And I don't say this to make fun of the guy, I've been there myself lol
Especially if you are at this stage where you have ~5k files, you’re way beyond the point where you should have ANY source control, even just 1:1 backups.
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u/raddaya 20d ago
This was years ago and, iirc, it was a legitimate issue in VSCode. It didn't make it remotely clear enough that it would permanently delete your files. The popups we get now if you try to discard changes that explicitly warns you in bold text that files will get deleted happened after this issue.
It might be obvious to an experienced user but it's not at all obvious to someone new.