Re: [GSOC PATCH v6 0/3] environment: remove sparse-checkout related global variables

Derrick Stolee [off-list ref] writes:

There are two ways to change the approach here to fix the problem
of needing prepare_repo_settings() everyhwere:

 1. With the idea that these sparse-checkout variables are
    critical to the functionality of the repo, they should move
    into the repository struct itself and be initialized along
    with all other values there. This changes the patches (and my
    follow-up series) significantly, but mechanically.

 2. If we are going to change the intention of the repo settings
    struct to move from "optional one-off feature flags" to
    "important information about the core behavior of a repo"
    then we should prepare_repo_settings() when initializing the
    repository struct.

My preference is (1). The only argument for (2) that I can think
of is that it is sometimes helpful to share only the settings for
a repo without sharing the whole repo. But that seems like a weak
reason right now.

I do agree with the sentiment that being able to pass &repo.settings
to helper function makes us feel safer, but I agree that it is a
weak argument.  If we reexamine other things in repo_settings, it
may turn out that the same reasoning applies to them and we may be
better off to roll repo_settings into the repository itself (after
all, it is an embedded structure, not even a pointer in the main
structure that points at an indenendent repo_settings structure),
but that is totally outside the scope of this discussion.

Thanks.