Re: [PATCH 1/2] Add possibility to store configuration in ~/.config/git/config file

From: David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com>
Date: May 28, 2012, 21:05 UTC
Message-ID: <CAJDDKr63QET=Dn4hV1Q-=xGJ3p1up5ohDsDGcuyrPC43Jvohug@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20120526215405.GC29463@sigill.intra.peff.net>

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:

Show 38 quoted lines

> On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 05:15:13PM +0700, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
>
>> > So I consider it the lesser of two evils. The rule is much simpler: "old
>> > versions of git do not know about this new location". Which is
>> > unavoidable, and easier to explain than "Old versions of git do not know
>> > about this location. New versions do, but will sometimes ignore
>> > depending on whether this other file exists, which might have been
>> > created by an old version".
>>
>> We could amend Junio's version a bit:
>>
>>  - if both versions exist, warn loudly (optionally refuse to work) and
>> suggest to symlink .gitconfig to .config/git/config
>
> Yeah, that might help. At the same time, it is not necessarily an error
> condition (e.g., if I track my ~/.config directory, but want to put
> one-offs in ~/.gitconfig. On the other hand, you can set that up
> manually with include.path = ~/.some-not-tracked-file, so maybe it is
> not a use case worth worrying about).
>
>> >  1. Start reading from the XDG location in addition to the old
>> >     location. Always write to the old location.
>> >
>> >  2. Wait N time units until everybody reasonable has a version that
>> >     does (1).
>> >
>> >  3. Start writing to the XDG location by default. Keep reading from the
>> >     old version for compatibility.
>>
>> Hang on.. this "by default" is only for Linux, or for every other OS too?
>
> Sorry, I overstated a bit. It would be _safe_ to do step 3 like that
> after waiting N time units, but we could also do something much less
> drastic (like only writing to it when it exists, or when ~/.gitconfig
> does not exist, or whatever). And no, I wouldn't think following XDG on
> non-Linux machines would make much sense if no other programs on that
> platform do so (I don't know what OS X is like, but I can imagine nobody
> uses XDG paths on Windows).

I completely disagree about the OS X thing. We have shared home directories across OS X and Linux. There are many OS X apps that do respect XDG because they use Qt. Git configuration is core to the system; I think we should avoid fragmentation.

Real-word scenario: At disney animation studio (and probably pixar too) OS X is (thankfully) a 2nd-class citizen to Linux. We would very much appreciate the ability to have the OS X git behave exactly like the Linux version, even if that means a Makefile switch. IMO it should do so by default, though; there's little to gain otherwise.

I would even suggest that windows should do the same. .dotfiles are not a regular windows thing in the first place. It's the simplest and easiest-to-explain thing to do, too. Otherwise it means more platform-specific documentation. Less documentation is better documentation (especially since no one reads it ;p)

So I think having OS X git follow XDG makes a lot of sense. I don't know of any alternatives short of adding something like an OS X-specific System Preferences pane or some insane OS X `defaults` .plist-integrated thing ;-)

-- 
David