Subject: Re: Would a config var for --force-with-lease be useful?

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2018 21:40:57 +0200

On Mon, Aug 27 2018, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Scott Johnson <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Hello Everyone:
>>
>> I'm considering writing a patch that adds a configuration variable
>> that will allow the user to default the command:
>>
>> git push --force
>>
>> to:
>>
>> git push --force-with-lease
>
> I actually consider "--force-with-lease" that does not say "this is
> what exactly I am expecting to replace with my version" a fairly
> dangerous form to recommend to the general public, unless their use
> of "git fetch" (or "git pull") is disciplined.  In the extreme case,
> if you habitually do "git fetch origin" only to update the remote
> tracking branches (so that you can do things like "git log ..origin"
> to see what others have been doing while you were offline), using
> "--force-with-lease" offers no value over "--force", as you're
> likely to find your remote-tracking ref to be up-to-date, but it no
> longer is what you based on your decision that replacing the tip
> with your version is safe.
>
> So, from that point of view, I would recommend thinking twice before
> considering to add such a configuration variable.

Last year there was a proposal for such a patch in:
https://public-inbox.org/git/[email-masked]/

This was after/during a long discussion starting with:
https://public-inbox.org/git/[email-masked]/

It appears the only patch that got in from that discussion was my
f17d642d3b ("push: document & test --force-with-lease with multiple
remotes", 2017-04-19) (https://github.com/git/git/commit/f17d642d3b)

I still think something like such a config variable would be useful, as
noted in https://public-inbox.org/git/[email-masked]/ Junio
voiced similar objections at the time.

It would be great to have some patch like this for consideration, but
give that thread a read first to see what some of the objections were /
various points raised for/against doing that.