alt Hacker News> Global ignores are good for OS-specific files like .DS_Store or Thumbs.db that shouldn’t clutter every project’s .gitignore.
News to me and a lot of people.
I see a lot of .DS_Store in a lot of gitignore.
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More importantly, it avoids the issue where every new editor requires an addition to every repository's gitignore file (.idea, .vscode, etc).
IMO, it's best to keep things that are "your fault" (e.g. produced by your editor or OS) in your global gitignore, and only put things that are "the repository's fault" (e.g. build artifacts, test coverage reports) in the repository's gitignore file.
I have mixed feelings about it really, I am aware of it, and use it in my dot files, but I think it's quite a gotcha - just recently actually I've been thinking to remove it.
It catches me out when something's ignored I don't expect, and it's not clear why in the working directory/repo, only for me to remember about the global one.
It catches others out (or catches me out by their doing) in collaboration when say I've not committed something, not even really been aware of the potential hazard, and that's been desired; but then someone else comes along and `git commit -a`s it.
But then where it is particularly useful is myriad tools that fall back on git ignore in lieu of (or in addition to) their own ignore files...
You still want to put these kinds of things in every project where you are collaborating. You can't depend on everyone to know and do this, so best to just be prepared for those who don't.