Re: [PATCH] optionally disable overwriting of ignored files

On Aug 21, 2010, at 1:05 AM, Clemens Buchacher wrote:

Files that go into a tracked .gitignore are most likely generated
files, and therefore trashable. Files that go into
.git/info/exclude or into an untracked .gitignore (e.g. echo '*' >
precious-simulation-results/.gitignore), are not always generated
and may not be trashable. At least they would not likely get in the
way of checkout or merge.

I can think of at least one common case that doesn't match this pattern - A web app that has a config file. What I've seen frequently done is the config file is named something like foo.config.template, and that's tracked, and you're encouraged to copy this to foo.config and change the values. This file may not want to be tracked because it contains sensitive information like database passwords, so the repo may stick it in the .gitignore file to ensure that this never gets added. However, this is most definitely a "precious" file. For this case, and others like it, I am strongly in favor of Junio's suggestion to add a 3rd category "precious but untracked".

-Kevin Ballard