See commit 6ad6d3d36c5924c8ff502ebbb6a6216df01e7efb in git.git for an update to the README
file about these four commands.
+--------------+ update-cache +--------------+ write-tree +-----------+
| | ---------------> | | ------------> | |
| working copy | | staging area | | object db |
| | <--------------- | | <------------ | |
+--------------+ checkout-cache +--------------+ read-tree +-----------+
(update-cache
and checkout-cache
were later renamed to *-index
.)