Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] difftool: add a skeleton for the upcoming builtin

Hi Junio,

On Tue, 29 Nov 2016, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

So the suggestion by both you and Peff, to use an environment variable,
which is either global, or requires the user to set it manually per
session, is simply not a good idea at all.

As I already said, I do not have a strong preference between config
and env.  I raised the env as a possible alternative that you can
think about its pros and cons, and as I already said, if you thought
and your concluded that config would work better for your needs,
that is fine by me.

The env flat out fails, on the grounds of not integrating nicely into a
Git for Windows installer.

The config kinda works now. But for what price. It stole 4 hours I did not
have. When the libexec/git-core/use-builtin-difftool solution took me a
grand total of half an hour to devise, implement and test.

And you know what? I still do not really see what is so bad about it.

And I still see what is bad about the config "solution": it *creates* a
chicken-and-egg problem with the order of config reading vs running
scripts. It *creates* problems for requiring to spawn a `git config` call
because reading the config in-process would mess up the global variables
and environment *beyond repair*, making it *impossible* to even spawn the
git-legacy-difftool Perl script.

In short: the config setting now works. But it is ugly as hell. I wish I
never had listened to you.

Ciao,
Dscho