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

> 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.