Subject: Re: [PATCH] add--interactive: allow diff colors without interactive colors

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:20:09 -0800

Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:

> Users with color.diff set to true/auto will not see color in
> "git add -i" unless they also set color.interactive.
>
> However, some users may want just one without the other, so
> there's no reason to tie them together.
>
> Note that there is now no way to have color on for "git
> diff" but not for diffs from "git add -i"; such a
> configuration seems unlikely, though.

Although I would agree with what this patch does, I think you
are contradicting with yourself in the above justification.
Some users may want to color "git diff" output but not
interaction with "git add -i", and that's also "just one without
the other", but you just tied them together, only differently,
and "seems unlikely" is a rather weak excuse.

The justification should instead be: having more independent
knobs is not necessarily better.  The user should not have to
tweak too many knobs.

In the longer term, I think we should try reducing the number of
knobs by giving "color.git" that allows you to pretend as if all
of the "color.interactive", "color.diff", "color.status",
"color.someothercolorizedcommand" are all set.  I do not think
being able to control the use of colors per command is giving
much other than confusion to the user.

That may not be so easy with the current structure of the config
reader, though.