Re: [PATCH v1 1/3] Introduce config variable "diff.primer"

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 11:54:26AM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> > So if you just want this from the command line, then I think it is safe 
> > to have "git diff" always respect "diff.primer", and scripts shouldn't 
> > be impacted.
> 
> But as Keith made clear, he wanted to use it from _git-gui_.  Which 
> -- naturally -- _has_ to use plumbing, to guarantee a stable interface.
>
> So "fixing" this in "git diff" is the wrong place; anything else than 
> teaching "git gui" to remember user-defined diff options and to use them 
> would be a complicator's glove.

I think what you are missing here is that he specifically mentioned the
command line, and I was responding to those comments. There are two
separate problems: default options for command line usage and the
mechanism by which one can set options for things like git-gui.

In this case he was asking specifically about "git diff" from the
command line, so fixing it in there _is_ the place to fix it (the only
other alternative being to make a wrapper or alias).

For the other problem, it _may_ benefit from tool support that would
help porcelains respect a "diff.primer" variable like Keith proposed.
But that has already been discussed elsewhere in the thread, so I'm not
going to repeat it here.

-Peff