Re: Add configuration options for some commonly used command-line options

["brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>]

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On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 11:15:33AM +0100, Matthieu Moy wrote:
> I think the main problem is indeed "stop the users from shooting
> themselves in the foot". Many command-line options change the behavior
> completely so allowing users to enable them by default means allowing
> the users to change Git in such a way that scripts calling it are
> broken.
> 
> This also doesn't help when troublshouting an issue as these options are
> typically something set once and for all and which you forget about.
> This typically leads to discussion in Q&A forums like:
> 
> A: Can you run "git foo"?
> B: Here's the result: ...
> A: I don't understand, I can't reproduce here.
> 
> just because B has a CLI option enabled by default.
> 
> This is the same reasoning that leads Git to forbid aliasing an existing
> command to something else.
> 
> OTOH, we already have almost "enable such or such option by default"
> with aliases. People who always run "git am" with "-3" can write
> 
> [alias]
>         a3 = am -3
> 
> and just run "git a3".

I tend to agree here.  At work, we have code that wants git status
--porcelain to be empty.  If a user added -b to all of their git status
calls (to make -s output more helpful), that would break a lot of
tooling.  It's much better if they create an alias, since that doesn't
affect automated tools.

I expect developers of things such as fugitive would dislike such a
feature as well.  I get the impression our existing config file options
already make life difficult enough.
-- 
brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
+1 832 623 2791 | https://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

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