Re: [RFC PATCH 3/3] FAQ: sync newuser-install

[Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/2/22, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 5:28 PM Roman Perepelitsa
> <roman.perepelitsa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 11:57 PM Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>> > On 8/30/22, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> > > You may think HISTFILE, SAVEHIST and HISTSIZE are self-explanatory,
>> > > but the fact is most people need to read the documentation, and even
>> > > then they end up confused. A few days ago I replied to a person on
>> > > reddit who had a configuration with HISTSIZE bigger than SAVEHIST.
>> >
>> > That is the correct configuration.
>>
>> This is my understanding as well. To be more specific, SAVEHIST
>> greater than HISTSIZE is equivalent to its being equal to HISTSIZE.
>
> Only if you are not using APPEND_HISTORY.

Still wrong. SAVEHIST greater than HISTSIZE is always equivalent to
its being equal to HISTSIZE as we have said repeatedly. If you
continue to argue otherwise it is surely trolling. If it is a mistake,
please read mails more carefully before making such firm assertions or
phrase them as a question if you are unsure.

> Isn't this proof that zsh developers are projecting too much of their
> *personal* workflow into the users? Not everyone uses zsh the way you
> do.
>
> If even veteran experts can't get right SAVEHIST and HISTSIZE, what
> hope does a brand new newcomer have?

The fact that you misunderstood something is not really proof of
anything, given how often you've made incorrect statements in the past
few days. I also don't think this could be clearer:

  You should be sure to set  the  value of HISTSIZE to a larger number
than SAVEHIST in order to give you some room for the duplicated
events, otherwise this  option  will  behave just like
HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS once the history fills up with unique events.

Though admittedly the SAVEHIST entry could have references to the
APPEND_HISTORY and HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST options (the HISTSIZE entry
already references the latter):

  If you use the  HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST  option, setting this value
larger than the SAVEHIST size will give you the difference as a
cushion  for  saving  duplicated history events.

> It is unreasonable to force absolutely every new user to set these
> options just to get started.

"Paste these lines in .zshrc to enable history" is not more
complicated with 3 lines than 1, however much you want to argue that
it is. They still need to find the line(s) to copy in the first place
(or god forbid, read the documentation).

-- 
Mikael Magnusson