Re: [PATCH/RFC 0/5] add "unset.variable" for unsetting previously set variables

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

... Which makes me wonder if safe-include is really helping that
much versus a project shipping a shell script that munges the repository
config. The latter is less safe (you are, after all, running code, but
you would at least have the chance to examine it), but is way more
flexible. And the safety is comparable to running "make" on a cloned
project.

I dunno. I do not have anything against the safe-include idea, but each
time it comes up, I think we are often left guessing about exactly which
config options projects would want to set, and to what values.

I tend to agree.  Every time somebody says "a project wants to give
its participants suggested settings", we seem to tell them to ship
an instruction to their participants, either in BUILDING or setup.sh
or whatever.  It certainly is simpler and more flexible.

The only real difference it might make is an attempt to push to an
unattended place and automatically making the changes to take effect,
aka "push to deploy", which is not what we encourage anyway, so...