Re: [PATCH] grep: --full-tree

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Nov 25, 2009, 22:20 UTC
Message-ID: <20091125222037.GA2861@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <885649360911251412n3e566c8fu536b361b993f2ac6@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 03:12:26PM -0700, James Pickens wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> Config options are not free - they add code bloat, increase the maintenance
> and testing burden, make it harder to explain how Git works if you have to
> say things like "if config X is true, then Git does ..., otherwise Git does
> ..., unless config Y is false, in which case Git does ...", make it harder
> to debug when Git doesn't do what you expected if you have to check a bunch
> of configs to figure out what the behavior should be, and make it harder to
> develop new features since you have to consider how they might interact with
> lots of config options.  So I think the bar for adding config options,
> especially ones that fundamentally change user visible behavior, should be
> set pretty high, and this one doesn't even come close to getting over the
> bar.

Sure, there are all those downsides. But what is the other option? Making me use the command line option (or pathspec magic) every single time I invoke git grep? That is a huge downside to me.

I started to try to write an argument against this, but I really don't know how to. You don't think this particular option gets over the bar. Probably because it is not something that has been annoying you personally. But is _is_ something that has been annoying me. Now we are both making claims from our gut. How do we proceed with a rational analysis?

-Peff