If you get the following error when compiling git from a git clone of git:

: command not foundline 2: 
: command not foundline 5: 
: command not foundline 8: 
./GIT-VERSION-GEN: line 14: syntax error near unexpected token `elif'
'/GIT-VERSION-GEN: line 14: `elif test -d .git -o -f .git &&
make: *** No rule to make target `GIT-VERSION-FILE', needed by `git-am'. Stop.
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....

and you have core.autocrlf set to true in your git config then consider the following “it’s probably not a good idea to convert newlines in the git repo” curtsey of wereHamster on #git.

So having core.autocrlf set to true may result in bad things happening in odd ways because line endings are far more complicated than they have any reason to be (thanks to decisions made before I was born). Bugs due to white space errors are irritating and happen to me far too often :-).

Today I used CVS – it was horrible, I tried to use git’s cvsimport and cvsexportcommit to deal with the fact that CVS is horrible unfortunately this did not work ;-(.

This post exists so that the next time someone is silly like me they might get a helpful response from Google.