Re: [RFC - draft] List of proposed future changes that are backward incompatible

Hi,

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009, Jakub Narebski wrote:

david@lang.hm writes:

quoted

one thing that would help new users is if there was a way to create a 
git config file that explicitly listed all the defaults. either as a 
sample config, or to expand the existing config file with all the 
defaults listed, but commented out.

I find that having such a config file helps me find config options I
never thought to look for.

That is a very good idea... if next to impossible now, I think, as
there is (I guess) no single place that stores default values.  But
perhaps I am mistaken.

Of course, you have to ignore the fact that it would no longer possible to 
update defaults for existing repositories.

For example, setting something like receive.denyCurrentBranch to a saner 
default would not reach existing repositories.

And you would also have to ignore the fact that sometimes, config 
variables are deprecated, and this _also_ would not reach existing 
repositories.  Of course, the same holds true if you set such a config 
variable manually, but then you are _supposed_ to know the config 
variable, and you are unlikely to learn the name of an obsolete variable.

Do keep in mind, too, that most of the variables are next to useless 
without the proper documentation.  And do you really want to replicate 
Documentation/config.txt in the config file?  If not, how do you want to 
make sure that the two different documentations do not go out of sync?

Further, it would be much, much harder to see what is _actually_ set.

Summary: I do not like that idea.

Ciao,
Dscho