title: What's the point of git fetch?
body: <p>I don't understand the advantage. I've seen it argued in places such as <a href="http://borgstrom.ca/2011/01/05/git-fetch-dont-pull.html" rel="noreferrer">this article</a> that fetching instead of pulling gives you the opportunity to inspect the changes before you merge them into your local branch.</p>
  
  <p>But, in that article for instance, the author uses <code>git diff master origin/master</code> to inspect the changes made in the newly fetched branch by comparing it to his local master.</p>
  
  <p>This is where I get confused....that command would work anyway, regardless of whether you had fetched first. Either way it's comparing local master to remote master. You don't need to fetch to compare your local branch to  the remote branch.</p>
  
  <p>What am I missing?</p>