Re: [PATCH 3/3] builtin-merge: add support for default merge options

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 2:18 AM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Note that you do not have to cover branch.*.remote and other things in the
same patch.  The first one could just handle branch.*.mergeoptions and you
can let later patches to implement the fallbacks for other variables.

Oh, indeed, but I think I do need to provide all the patches at once.
Otherwise it will just be very confusing and I anticipate a user
asking "how come I can use branch.*.mergeoptions, but none of the
other branch.*.foo settings work?"

And to be honest, that concern extends beyond branch.*. "How come git
foo allows defaults, but git bar does not?" seems like a valid
question, and while "because no one implemented defaults for foo and
bar" is a valid answer, it isn't a very satisfying one (to me).

This thread is what inspired me to start the "what's so evil about
overriding builtins with aliases" thread (please don't address that
here, I got it from the other thread). But I still wonder if we should
provide defaults consistently instead of piecemeal. For example:

[defaults]
   merge = --no-ff

But I suppose that will be objected to as confusing/complicated/likely
to have side-effects.

j.