On Thu, Jul 31, 2025 at 04:21:55PM +0100, Phillip Wood wrote:
An alternative
approach would be to advise the user to run "git config --show-origin"
and leave them to figure out how to fix it themselves but that seems
rather unfriendly. As we're forcing them to update their config we
should try and make that as easy as possible.
your approach certainly helps the user to fix their acute problem
quickly, but
- why should it? it's not like leaving it to the user would cause them a
huge burden, or that a noteworthy number of users are even going to be
affected. i don't think the fact that the update is forced justifies
making it a lot more user friendly than git configuration usually is,
esp. at this cost in complexity.
- i don't think i'd appreciate the tool lecturing me about trivial usage
patterns, when the real question in that situation is why the option
was set like that in the first place and whether/how the replacement
is actually equivalent or even superior.
- given that it doesn't print the entire decision tree (when
encountering read-only files), it doesn't necessarily guide the user
towards the best overall solution. that makes it _less_ user-friendly,
in a way.
