Add daily email for 2024-01-27

gitignore - inclusive or exclusive?

source/_daily_emails/2024-01-27.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+title: gitignore - inclusive or exclusive?
+date: 2024-01-27
+permalink: archive/2024/01/27/gitignore-inclusive-or-exclusive
+snippet: |
+  How do you write your .gitignore files?
+tags:
+  - software-development
+  - git
+---
+
+Add everything and ignore what you don't want, or ignore everything and explicitly add what you need.
+
+There are two ways to structure a .gitignore file.
+
+The default approach is that all files can be added, and you specify the files and directories you want to ignore.
+
+For example, if my `.gitignore` file was this, these two directories would be ignored:
+
+```plain
+vendor
+web
+```
+
+The other approach is to ignore everything and unignore the things to add. For example:
+
+```plain
+*
+!build.yaml
+!Dockerfile
+!docker-compose.yaml
+!web/*/custom
+```
+
+Both approaches work and are regularly used.
+
+Which approach do you prefer and why?
+
+Reply and let me know.