Re: [PATCH 0/2] config includes, take 2

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Tue, Feb 07, 2012 at 10:03:26AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> > But isn't "git cola" a git-config editing program?
> 
> Yes, that is really the right "rhetorical" question to ask.  It needs to
> know what it is editing, so it at least needs to be _aware_ of the
> inclusion, where each item comes from, and how to edit contents of _one_
> particular file.
> 
> And that issue is not something new that was introduced by include.path.

True, but it was made more complex. David has already dealt with the 3
sources in his code. Adding includes expands this to N sources, and his
code needs to adapt. It would be nice if we could at least make the
adaptation backwards-compatible and as painless as possible.

But I just see the "right" answer in a complex case needing user input
that a simple call to "git config" can't provide. That is, pretending
that "git config --global" is still a single file for reading and
writing can get you something that _works_, but it will make a mess of
the user's config. The most elegant thing to me is to expand git-cola's
config editor into an N-pane editor instead of a 2-pane editor (not 3,
because it doesn't make sense to edit /etc/gitconfig with it, and nor
does the current version support it). People without includes wouldn't
notice the difference, and people with includes might appreciate the
power and flexibility.

-Peff