From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:36:14 GMT
Subject: Re: How to undo previously set configuration? (again)
Message-ID: <20190425143614.GA91608@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <87k1fis8gq.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Hi,

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

> Because we don't have some general config facility for this it keeps
> coming up, and various existing/proposed options have their own little
> custom hacks for doing it, e.g. this for Barret Rhoden's proposed "blame
> skip commits" feature
> https://public-inbox.org/git/878swhfzxb.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com/
> (b.t.w. I *meant* /dev/null in that E-Mail, but due to PEBCAK wrote
> /dev/zero).

I'm confused.  Isn't that bog-standard Git usage, not a custom hack?
That is, I thought the intended behavior is always

 1. For single-valued options, last value wins.
 2. For multi-valued options, empty clears the list.
 3. When there is a special behavior triggered by not supplying the
    option at all, offer an explicit value like "default" that triggers
    the same behavior, too.

and that any instance of a command that isn't following that is a bug.

Which of course leaves room for improvement in documentation and how
we organize the implementation (as Peff discussed in [1]), but isn't
it nice to already have something in place that doesn't require
inventing a new syntax?

Thanks,
Jonahtan

[1] https://public-inbox.org/git/20180406175044.GA32228@sigill.intra.peff.net/