Re: [PATCH] grep: --full-tree

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 03:12:26PM -0700, James Pickens wrote:

Config options are not free - they add code bloat, increase the maintenance
and testing burden, make it harder to explain how Git works if you have to
say things like "if config X is true, then Git does ..., otherwise Git does
..., unless config Y is false, in which case Git does ...", make it harder
to debug when Git doesn't do what you expected if you have to check a bunch
of configs to figure out what the behavior should be, and make it harder to
develop new features since you have to consider how they might interact with
lots of config options.  So I think the bar for adding config options,
especially ones that fundamentally change user visible behavior, should be
set pretty high, and this one doesn't even come close to getting over the
bar.

Sure, there are all those downsides. But what is the other option?
Making me use the command line option (or pathspec magic) every single
time I invoke git grep? That is a huge downside to me.

I started to try to write an argument against this, but I really don't
know how to. You don't think this particular option gets over the bar.
Probably because it is not something that has been annoying you
personally. But is _is_ something that has been annoying me. Now we are
both making claims from our gut. How do we proceed with a rational
analysis?

-Peff