From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2024 15:45:32 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] config.c: avoid segfault with --fixed-value and valueless config Message-ID: In-Reply-To: Patrick Steinhardt writes: > Edge cases like this really make me wonder what the benefit of implicit > bools is in our config files. > > So... why do we have them in the first place? Is there even a single > good reason? There isn't any good reason to introduce such a syntax if we were desigining the configuration file format from scratch. It was added because originally Linus thought it was a cute syntax, and these days a lot lot more importantly, it is kept working because you will break a lot of existing configuration files that were hand tweaked if you remove the support suddenly.