Re: [PATCHv2] submodules: overhaul documentation

> On 06/22, Stefan Beller wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 1:20 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> > Brandon Williams <bmwill@google.com> writes:
>> >
>> >> On 06/20, Stefan Beller wrote:
>> >> ...
>> >>> +The configuration of submodules
>> >>> +-------------------------------
>> >>> +
>> >>> +Submodule operations can be configured using the following mechanisms
>> >>> +(from highest to lowest precedence):
>> >>> +
>> >>> + * the command line for those commands that support taking submodule specs.
>> >>> +
>> >>> + * the configuration file `$GIT_DIR/config` in the superproject.
>> >>> +
>> >>> + * the `.gitmodules` file inside the superproject. A project usually
>> >>> +   includes this file to suggest defaults for the upstream collection
>> >>> +   of repositories.
>> >>
>> >> I dislike this last point.  Realistically we don't want this right?  So
>> >> perhaps we shouldn't include it?
>> >
>> > I am not sure if I follow.  Without .gitmodules, how would you, as a
>> > downstream developer, bootstrap the whole thing?
>> >
>>
>> I think Brandon eludes to our long term vision of having a separate
>> magic ref containing these informations instead of carrying it in tree.
>>
>> As urls change over time, it is better to keep the urls out of the
>> actual history, but still versioned so maybe we'll want to have
>> a ref/submodule-config/master ref that contains all the bootstrapping
>> information. The .gitmodules file would degenerate to a pure
>> name<->path mapping.
>
> I was more eluding to having fetch.recurse and the other similar bits
> stored in the gitmodules file.