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

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Apr 8, 2011, 20:24 UTC
Message-ID: <20110408202404.GA16540@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vaag04k8m.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 12:27:05PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> > 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?
> 
> I probably should stated it differently.  I dropped it during this round
> because they are _not_ needed to help the transition, but it is a possible
> additional feature.

But in my earlier email, one of the users who is helped by this is one who wants to silence the migration warning. So it is somewhat related to the transition.

If we were in a world where "." and ":/" had always worked and there was no variable, would I write a patch for the variable? Probably not, especially because I think the full-tree behavior is what I would set it to (and that is going to become the default).

But we don't live in that world. We are making a transition, and so it may be worth it to help:

  1. People who want the new behavior _now_ without extra typing.

  2. Placate people who say "...but I liked the old behavior better".

I am in group (1). I don't know if people in group (2) need placating or not, but I have grown to assume there will always be people to complain about a change. :)

-Peff