Subject: Re: [PATCH (resend)] Let core.excludesfile default to ~/.gitexcludes.

From: Michael J Gruber <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:00:09 +0100

Matthieu Moy venit, vidit, dixit 26.11.2009 11:35:
> Most users will set it to ~/.gitsomething. ~/.gitignore would conflict
> with per-directory ignore file if ~/ is managed by Git, so ~/.gitexcludes
> is a sane default.

I'm sorry to jump in so late, and this may sound like bike-shedding, but
right now we have

.git/info/exclude
.gitignore

and this would add

~/.gitexcludes

That is, three terms, or two, where one comes in two variations
(exclude/exludes). I always wondered why we have two.

The reason for .gitignore is most probably the similarity to
.${othervcs}ignore, and that is a valid reason.

I know we have ~/.gitconfig for the global version of .git/config, and
maybe that was just no good idea either. But I don't even dare
suggesting to rename it ~/.gitglobalconfig.

So, in line at least with our term "global" (per user) config, I would
suggest to use "~/.gitglobalignore" for the global ignore file. Maybe,
eventually, we'll manage to rename .git/info/excludes to .git/info/ignore.

On a somewhat larger scale, a good alternative strategy would be to have
a directory "~/.gitglobal/" in which Git would look for
~/.gitglobal/config and
~/.gitglobal/info/ignore or
~/.gitglobal/ignore

i.e. mirroring the repo structure or at least bundling everything in a
single dir, which would also be a good place for a global svnauthors
file and such, and for other global configuration files we don't think
of right now.

Michael