Re: [PATCH] user-manual: Use "git config --global" instead of editing ~/.gitconfig

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.