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

> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 1:22 AM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
>> Probably we would want something flexible, but with sane defaults. Like
>> an environment variable to ignore all (or most) config options, but then
>> the ability to opt into specific ones. Something like:
>>
>>  GIT_PLUMBING=1; export GIT_PLUMBING
>>  git log ;# does not respect any non-plumbing config
>>  git --respect='log.showroot' ;# respect just the one variable
>>  git --respect='color.*' log ;# you get all color
>>
>> But there are two big obstacles (besides the obvious issue that
>> introducing this in itself needs a gentle transition plan):
>>
>>  1. We need to annotate every config option with whether it is
>>     potentially problematic. For example, core.filemode should probably
>>     be respected no matter what (but I'm not sure if it is simply true
>>     for core.*).
>>
>>  2. Script writers need to actually use the system, which is somewhat
>>     more verbose and annoying than what they have to do now. But at
>>     least it defaults to safety when they are lazy, and then they can
>>     re-add options. Of course, they are stuck on an upgrade treadmill
>>     of analyzing and approving each new option that appears in git.
> 
> +1 on this.
> 
> This would make it easier to add options in the future that would be
> potentially dangerous to scripts otherwise. But more than
> "non-plumbing" I would rather define these variables as *preferences*;
> things that are not essential to the proper functioning of git
> commands, and would vary from user to user.
>