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

[Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Sep 3, 2022 at 2:27 PM Roman Perepelitsa
<roman.perepelitsa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 3, 2022 at 9:07 PM Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 3, 2022 at 8:39 AM Roman Perepelitsa
> > <roman.perepelitsa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 5:46 AM Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > > > SAVEHIST greater than HISTSIZE is always equivalent to
> > > > its being equal to HISTSIZE [...]
> > >
> > > I believe this is the case as far as using history from within zsh is
> > > concerned. If I understand correctly, Felipe wants to have fewer
> > > commands available in history when using zsh than what is stored in
> > > HISTFILE. I'm not sure under which circumstances this can be desired.
> > > Perhaps when working on a system with very little RAM, plenty of disk
> > > space and no swap? In any case, I wouldn't recommend using such a
> > > configuration to beginners because it's bound to cause confusion. It
> > > can be surprising when some lines from HISTFILE aren't available when
> > > searching or printing history from within zsh.
> >
> > No, this is not what I want.
>
> My apologies. I thought this was what you wanted based on [1] where
> you mentioned that you set history parameters thus:

My configuration at any particular point in time is not relevant to
the discussion of defaults.

And you omitted the very next sentence I said:

I don't have any particularly good reason for the numbers, I just want
my history saved.

If you really want to know 2 of those 3 values are different now, and
they will probably be different tomorrow. Again, this is irrelevant.

> > This is not something new users should be burdened with, they don't
> > need to know what SAVEHIST means, just that it should be set to
> > $HISTSIZE.
>
> Can you clarify what you mean here? Are you saying that there are no
> use cases for setting SAVEHIST and HISTSIZE to different (unequal)
> values?

Of course I'm not saying that. Absolutely nobody is suggesting to
remove SAVEHIST, so this is a smoke screen.

We are talking about the *defaults*, and what makes sense for new users.

> Or perhaps that the vast majority of users would be best
> served by setting these parameters to the same value?

Not the vast majority, the majority.

And the current documentation already presupposes that.

-- 
Felipe Contreras