Re: [PATCH v2 4/4] init: provide useful advice about init.defaultBranch

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi Junio,

On Tue, 24 Nov 2020, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
>
> >>     To configure the initial branch name to use in all of your new
> >>     repositories and squelch this message, run:
> >>
> >> may be better---it makes it clear that the offered two choices are
> >> (1) do nothing and see this message every time, or (2) commit to a
> >> name and not see this message again.
> >
> > Well, I think I finally understand what you are saying: there is a
> > legitimate need for a way to go with Git's preference but still suppress
> > that message.
>
> I am not saying it is a legitimate need.  I just wanted to make it
> clear that we deliberately chose not to grant that wish in the
> message.  An advice flag in this context means that the users can
> choose to let their distro and sysadm to flip the default silently,
> which is much worse than having to see the message every time they
> start a new repository with "git init".

The distribution already can add patches, so this objection is a red
herring. The sysadm can pick a different value for `init.defaultBranch`
and dictate to the user silently what initial branch name to use, so that
is also a red herring.

I still think that there is a legitimate need for this config option to
turn the advice off, without having to override Git's default branch name.

In particular in this context, I would think that most users will want to
just go with whatever is Git's default.

Ciao,
Dscho