Re: [PATCH] config.c: avoid segfault with --fixed-value and valueless config

[Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 08:45:32AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
>
> > Edge cases like this really make me wonder what the benefit of implicit
> > bools is in our config files.
> >
> > So... why do we have them in the first place? Is there even a single
> > good reason?
>
> There isn't any good reason to introduce such a syntax if we were
> desigining the configuration file format from scratch.  It was added
> because originally Linus thought it was a cute syntax, and these
> days a lot lot more importantly, it is kept working because you will
> break a lot of existing configuration files that were hand tweaked
> if you remove the support suddenly.

I agree. It's perhaps interesting to think about in the context of the
discussion in [1], but I think also worth having some perspective above.

Sure, this configuration syntax would not be invented anew today, but I
also don't think it's worth breaking existing configurations, even in a
hypothetical "Git 3.0" release.

In some sense I am sympathetic to Patrick's argument, but I also think
that having a bug in a relatively niche feature like --fixed-value that
wasn't noticed for almost four years over 17 [2] releases isn't itself a
strong argument for removing the feature.

Thanks,
Taylor

[1]: <fc1a9fa03de7330f79dc56b0f2712834cb236b5a.1715070296.git.ps@pks.im>
[2]: $ git tag --contains c90702a1f6 'v2.*.0' | wc -l