msysgit: should core.autocrlf=true be the default on Windows?

I think core.autocrlf=true should be the default on Windows. I strongly believe that Windows users expect this default, as others Windows application rely on it. I recently tried to use kdiff3 on Windows and got satisfactory results only after using autocrlf.

autocrlf should be set right from the very beginning. If you found out about it later, you would have to convert your existing working trees, which is not too easy. Therefore we should guide the user to a reasonable default.

We can report the defaults we chose in *bold* after the installation completed and give a hint where further background information can be found, and what would be needed to adjust the default.

What do you think?

Would /etc/gitconfig in msysgit be the right place to set the default?

	Steffen

Please keep in mind that msysgit is targeting developers who want to contribute to MinGW port of git. Since building and editing happens in MinGW environment the LF-only default seems reasonable. On the other hand, setup for end-users should have it as default, I agree. Please report this issue here: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/issues/list

- Dmitry
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steffen Prohaska" <prohaska@zib.de>
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.version-control.git
To: "Johannes Schindelin" <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>; "Marius Storm-Olsen" <marius@trolltech.com>
Cc: "Git Mailing List" <git@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Saturday, 11 August 2007 13:56
Subject: msysgit: should core.autocrlf=true be the default on Windows?

On Aug 12, 2007, at 7:36 AM, Dmitry Kakurin wrote:

Why that?. In my opinion msysgit is already the best git you can get on Windows. It's a one click, self-contained installation, with the most up-to-date git. The installation is kept separate from cygwin, which saves a lot of trouble with textmode/binmode. It's easy to get started, easy to contribute fixes, easy to upgrade to a new version. It should be polished a bit, but then I would announce it as _the_ default way of installing git on Windows.

I have my msysgit set to autocrlf=true and have no problems. It's even better now, because I can open files in Windows programs without problems.

But our end-users are developers! We should leverage on that and make msysgit the 'end-user' installation. Developers tend to be interested in fixing problems with their working environment. We should provide them a _very_ easy way of submitting their fixes and improvements back to msysgit, e.g. via mob branch. This could speed up the Windows porting effort tremendously.

I also think we should work in the same environment that we propose to our end-users. If we believe end-users should work with autocrlf=true, we should do so as well, just to be sure that our recommendation is the right one.

done.

	Steffen

I'll be short.

On 8/12/07, Steffen Prohaska <prohaska@zib.de> wrote:

End-user version could be made MUCH smaller.

I agree. That's why msysgit was created. On the other hand, for many user Git is just a tool that they use to accomplish something important for them (completely unrelated to git). That's why end-user installer exists as well.