Re: [PATCH 2/4] add -u: get rid of "treewideupdate" configuration

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Apr 8, 2011, 17:54 UTC
Message-ID: <20110408175149.GA3917@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <1302138996-10006-3-git-send-email-gitster@pobox.com>

On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 06:16:34PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Thanks to the magic ":/" pathspec, it is much easier to invoke both
> tree-wide operation and limited-to-cwd operation on demand from the
> command line.

I am mildly negative on this patch. Having the config variable helps two types of users:

  1. Ones who see the warning for new behavior, say "great, I've been
     informed and am ready to use it", and don't want to see the message
     again. They are stuck typing "./" or ":/" every time, or end up
     getting spammed by the migration message.

  2. Users who prefer the current behavior and would rather keep it. We
     give them no out except to type "./" every time. Changing the
     default is one thing; an irate user can see the change and fix it.
     But to give them no way of changing the default back seems
     unnecessarily limiting.

> What remains is the downside of the configuration variable,
> namely, that it makes git behave differently depending on who you are and
> in which repository you are using it, hence making it harder to help
> and/or teach others.

I have never been a fan of this reasoning. Sure, it is slightly harder to help people when the system is configurable. But dropping configurability comes at the cost of people who are using the system day-to-day. And isn't making it pleasant to use every day more important than the minority of times you are telling somebody else how to use it?

Besides which, if you are helping somebody remotely or sitting at an unfamiliar git installation, it still wouldn't be safe to recommend pathspec-less "git add -u" without first checking which version of git the person is running (though to be fair, in 2 or 3 years it will be reasonable to assume a certain behavior, and a config option would still exist).

-Peff