On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 03:46:42PM -0400, Taylor Blau wrote: > On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 08:45:32AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > Patrick Steinhardt <ps@xxxxxx> writes: > > > > > Edge cases like this really make me wonder what the benefit of implicit > > > bools is in our config files. > > > > > > So... why do we have them in the first place? Is there even a single > > > good reason? > > > > There isn't any good reason to introduce such a syntax if we were > > desigining the configuration file format from scratch. It was added > > because originally Linus thought it was a cute syntax, and these > > days a lot lot more importantly, it is kept working because you will > > break a lot of existing configuration files that were hand tweaked > > if you remove the support suddenly. > > I agree. It's perhaps interesting to think about in the context of the > discussion in [1], but I think also worth having some perspective above. > > Sure, this configuration syntax would not be invented anew today, but I > also don't think it's worth breaking existing configurations, even in a > hypothetical "Git 3.0" release. > > In some sense I am sympathetic to Patrick's argument, but I also think > that having a bug in a relatively niche feature like --fixed-value that > wasn't noticed for almost four years over 17 [2] releases isn't itself a > strong argument for removing the feature. I was really just wondering whether there is actually a good reason to have it that I couldn't think of. I certainly think that this feature shouldn't exist, but also agree that removing it now would create more hassle than benefit. Thanks for the context! Patrick
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