From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "J. Bruce Fields" Subject: Re: [PATCH] user-manual: Use "git config --global" instead of editing ~/.gitconfig Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 23:46:53 -0400 Message-ID: <20070511034653.GB26896@fieldses.org> References: <200705102353.31821.johan@herland.net> <20070510220253.GZ13719@fieldses.org> <20070510230045.GF4489@pasky.or.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Johan Herland , git@vger.kernel.org To: Petr Baudis X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri May 11 05:47:12 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HmM63-0003ZW-1k for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Fri, 11 May 2007 05:47:11 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752994AbXEKDrE (ORCPT ); Thu, 10 May 2007 23:47:04 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1756673AbXEKDrD (ORCPT ); Thu, 10 May 2007 23:47:03 -0400 Received: from mail.fieldses.org ([66.93.2.214]:59346 "EHLO fieldses.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752994AbXEKDrD (ORCPT ); Thu, 10 May 2007 23:47:03 -0400 Received: from bfields by fieldses.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1HmM5l-0008GX-IX; Thu, 10 May 2007 23:46:53 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070510230045.GF4489@pasky.or.cz> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 01:00:45AM +0200, Petr Baudis wrote: > However, in that case I think this is not the good point to show > ~/.gitconfig. Your goal at that point should be to get the user able > to commit as simply as possible, Sure. > and having to manually edit some config file is unnecessary hassle > when you can just use these two simple commands; I don't get it; why are the two commands "simple", and editing a file a "hassle"? In terms of, say, time required, or number of keystrokes, I suspect the two are about the same. And it seems to me that: - As users of a tool designed mainly to track changes to text files, git users are likely to be pretty proficient at editing text files. - People also need to be able to view the configuration and change it. If they make a typo on the first try, they may need to do this sooner rather than later. With a config file, this is trivial. With git-config, you have to learn at least one new thing (how to query values). - The config file is easier to read than the git-config output. - You're going to have to edit some text anyway to plug your name in, so we can't make this a pure cut-n-paste from the docs. > also, we use the same commands in tutorials, crash courses etc. So I > really think that consistency is better here. The more viable strategy > is to mention that git-config really just plays with simple text files > at some... later point. :-) So while I'm not convinced of the value of consistency here, if we have to have consistency, I'd rather standardize on config-file-editing. --b.