From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2018 17:38:20 GMT Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v2 06/12] submodule--helper: add a '--stage' option to the 'config' sub command Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20180806125828.66fc99ef0b118e26e0b3e60d@ao2.it> Antonio Ospite writes: >> I also do not see a reason why we want to stop referring to >> .gitmodules explicitly by name. We do not hide the fact that >> in-tree .gitignore and .gitattributes files are used to hold the >> metainformation about the project tree, saying that it is an >> implementation detail. Is there a good reason why .gitmodules >> should be different from these other two? > > Not sure about that, but one difference I can see > between .gitignore/.gitattributes and .gitmodules is that I got the > impression that editing the latter by hand is strongly discouraged, if > that is indeed the case a layer of indirection can make sense IMHO to > make the actual file path less relevant. I do not think we discourage hand editing of .gitmodules more than others, say .gitignore; and I do not see a sane reason to do so. "If you commit broken .gitmodules and let another person clone it, submodules will not be checked out correctly" is *not* a sane reason, as exactly the same thing can be said for incorrect checkout of files with broken .gitattributes. Quite honestly, I just want to get over with this minor detail that won't help any scripts (after all submodule--helper is not meant to be used by humans) and focus on other parts of the patch series.