Re: [RFC PATCH 5/6] Tell config.txt about NAMESPACE COLLISIONS

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

Kenneth Lorber <keni@hers.com> writes:

> From: Kenneth Lorber <keni@his.com>
>
> Add a link to the NAMESPACE COLLISIONS information where git help config
> only mentioned the issue without supplying any guidance for how to do that.
>
> Signed-off-by: Kenneth Lorber <keni@his.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/config.txt | 4 +++-
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
> index ef0768b91a..1e819c26f0 100644
> --- a/Documentation/config.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/config.txt
> @@ -310,7 +310,9 @@ in the appropriate manual page.
>  Other git-related tools may and do use their own variables.  When
>  inventing new variables for use in your own tool, make sure their
>  names do not conflict with those that are used by Git itself and
> -other popular tools, and describe them in your documentation.
> +other popular tools, and describe them in your documentation.  See
> +'NAMESPACE COLLISIONS' in linkgit:gitrepository-layout[5] for guidelines
> +to prevent such conflicts.

The configuration variable namespace is a shared resource, and it
does make sense to give a provision for third-party tools to
coordinate to avoid stepping on each others' toes.

The repository-layout document is about a physical on-filesystem
structure that ought to be blackbox to third-party tools, so the
link target may have to be different from what this patch wants to
add, though.  

I'd rather not to have such a document prematurely; if we were to
add something to this paragraph (and I do think it is a good idea to
say a bit more than "you're on your own but make sure you do not
conflict with Git and other people" which is what we have there in
the original), I'd just stop at telling readers to come here to the
list to discuss and solicit input from other Git stakeholders.

Thanks.