Re: [PATCH 13/14] completion: add default options

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 5:31 AM Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Versions of Git older than v2.17 don't know about
>> --git-completion-helper, so provide some defaults for them.
> ...
>> +__gitcomp_builtin_add_default=" --dry-run --verbose --interactive --patch --edit --force --update --renormalize --intent-to-add --all --ignore-
> removal --refresh --ignore-errors --ignore-missing --chmod=
> --no-dry-run -- --no-verbose --no-interactive --no-patch --no-edit
> --no-force --no-update --no-renormalize --no-intent-to-add --no-all
> --no-ignore-removal --no-refresh --no-ignore-errors
> --no-ignore-missing --no-chmod"
>
> And who's going to keep these uptodate? If you do this, might as well
> delete --git-completion-helper
>
> A more acceptable option might be regenerate git-completion.bash and
> run --git-completion-helper to generate these, or make
> git-completion.bash source a generated file.

Nicely analysed and summarized.  What kind of target audience are we
talking about?  What's the payoff vs cost comparison trying to
catering to those who install more recent completion script that
requires the --git-completion-helper option without using antient
Git?

If the cutoff boundary is 2.17, that is more than year ago, and the
boundary gets further and further in the past as time goes by. Also,
depending on how old the version of Git the target user runs, these
hardcoded and manually listed options may not yet even exist in
their binary.