im sure cvs doesnt require you to remove files from repo in order to ignore them. i used cvs for years and its ingonre policy is simple and effective. you just put the files/patterns into ignore file and things happen aka they are ignored. with this very intelligent git this simple thing is not so simple. of course there are workarounds (like the template example you gave) but they are clumsy. im just trying to understand why git ignore mechanism cant just read the .gitignore file and obey to those ignore rules without asking you to do fancy voodoo operations such removing those files from repo. -- View this message in context: http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/gitignore-design-tp6632987p6633412.html Sent from the git mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html