Re: [PATCH 1/2] user-manual: add global config section

[Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>]

Felipe Contreras venit, vidit, dixit 14.10.2009 16:26:
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Michael J Gruber
> <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> wrote:
>> Felipe Contreras venit, vidit, dixit 12.10.2009 19:09:
>>> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Michael J Gruber
>>> <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> wrote:
>>>> Well, you do talk about "system" below, and that's about it. Also, the
>>>> configuration is not really distributed among different locations. Most
>>>> newbies interested in a *D*VCS will misunderstand this (as git having
>>>> distributed configuration).
>>>>
>>>> Alternative:
>>>>
>>>> Git's default configuration can be changed on a system wide, global (per
>>>> user) and local (per repository) level, in the order of increasing
>>>> precedence.
>>>
>>> When I read that it's not clear if the local level discards the global
>>> level completely or it's aggregated. If we specify that it's only the
>>> variables that take precedence it might be clearer:
>>>
>>> Git's configuration is composed of variables that are stored in
>>> multiple locations: 'system' (all users), 'global' (for the user), and
>>> 'repository' -- in decreasing order of precedence.
>>
>> Yep, although established lingo is "options" (not "variables"), and it's
>> really increasing order, not decreasing.
> 
> Really? I remember clearly Junio stating otherwise:
> http://marc.info/?l=git&m=123460371724873&w=2
> 
> ----
>> +	OPT_BOOLEAN(0, "unset", &do_unset, "removes an option: name [value-regex]"),
> 
> Please don't introduce a new noun "option" that has never been used to
> mean a "configuration variable" in git documentation.  It unnecessarily
> confuses everybody.
> ----

Well, Junio certainly is authoritative, and I don't want to risk any bad
patch-acceptance-fu ( :) ), but

2d2465c (Add documentation for git-config-set, 2005-11-17)

is the origin of that doc for git-config. I'm not just claiming it
myself. That commit introduced "option", uses it in all but one place,
and this never changed since then! [The ratio went up from 6:1 to 40:5]
I have no objection to changing this established notion, but established
it is. I haven't tracked down the use of option vs. variable in other
places than git-config.txt and its predecessors.

Michael