From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2015 20:52:53 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] setup: do not create $X/gitdir unnecessarily when accessing git file $X
Message-ID: <20151102205252.GA12181@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqtwp4dt17.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Mon, Nov 02, 2015 at 12:51:16PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
> > [2] I suspect this code should use write_file_gently(). What happens if
> >     I have a read-only linked checkout?
> 
> Or you may not be the owner of the repository, you think you are
> doing a read-only operation, and you silently end up creating a file
> that cannot be written by the repository owner?
> 
> Honestly, I think this whole "just in case the user moved without
> telling us, we sneakily fix things without telling the user" should
> just go away.  This is not the first incidence of a tool trying to
> be overly clever and pretend to know better than the end user biting
> us, is it?

I have to admit, that was my gut feeling, too, but I do not know enough
about the problem it is solving to say whether it is a good tradeoff.
Unfortunately 23af91d102e1efaff33b77ab7746356835a3d600 did not have much
discussion. I didn't dig into the mailing list, though. I was hoping Duy
could summarize it. :)

-Peff