Subject: Re: wrong handling of text git attribute leading to files incorrectly reported as modified

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 14:23:35 -0700

Brandon McCaig <[email-masked]> writes:

> That is for your benefit, and for easily sharing that configuration
> with collaborators. Git only cares that the file exists in your
> working tree at run-time.

It is a lot more than "for sharing".  If you made .gitignore only
effective after it gets committed, you cannot test your updated
version of .gitignore is correct before committing the change.