Re: [PATCH] precious-files.txt: new document proposing new precious file type

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Dec 27, 2023, 22:15 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqsf3nl2b3.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CABPp-BGSTYDUR1oYYXkCSh-1i2zwxBM=-gnoe-ezNbtPi5CV2A@mail.gmail.com>

Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> There are
> precisely two choices in our design for how older Git versions can
> treat precious files:
>   * ignored-and-expendable
>   * untracked-and-precious
> If we pick syntax that causes older Git versions to treat precious
> files as ignored-and-expendable, we risk deleting important files.

Yes but not really. I'd expect the adoption of precious feature and the adoption of versions of Git that supports that feature will go more or less hand in hand. Projects that, for any reason, need to keep their participants at pre-precious versions of Git would naturally refrain from marking the "precious" paths in their "ignore" mechanism before their participants are ready, so even if we chose syntax that will make the precious ones mistaken as merely ignored, the damage would be fairly small.