Subject: Re: Feature Request: Ignore Tracked IDE files

From: Sean Allred <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2023 04:10:26 -0500

Ward Hopeman <[email-masked]> writes:
>     Request: Create an Ignore section that allows for minimal IDE
>     inclusion without impacting IDE settings for local users.
>
>     Reason for the request: Most engineering teams share some IDE
> settings when working on code. More often than not, local IDE changes
> force engineers to resort to using "git update-index --skip-worktree
> <file>” to avoid the IDE settings files from showing up. It would be
> nice to be able to identify IDE files that you want in the repository
> but not necessarily track all changes as most of them are not desired
> when individuals make those changes for local setup. But teams like to
> track and have available generic shareable configurations like tabs to
> space and line length etc. By making it a user configurable section of
> ignore it allows for future IDEs to be listed without impacting the
> way it works for common IDEs today.

It sounds like you are rather after 'public' vs 'private' IDE settings,
which would be a feature of the IDE -- not of Git -- and it seems a far
simpler model. Public settings are checked-in, private settings are not,
and private settings override public settings.

This is used by Visual Studio (IIRC) and possible in other tools (Emacs
I know for sure, though I can't imagine VS Code doesn't have this
concept by now). It's even the model used by Git itself for some things
(.gitignore vs. .git/info/exclude vs. core.excludesfile).

Are these alternative approaches not an option?

--
Sean Allred