If the user needs the prompt to be able to set up user/email, then they're probably not qualified to diagnose what went wrong with their setup if something does go wrong. This way they can get help and fix whatever actually went wrong, rather than just re-setting their username/email and then discovering later that they lost all of their other configuration too.
Users that are capable of diagnosing what went wrong with their repo are also comfortable setting username/email in the config.
This sounds horribly elitist. You absolutely must use the command line and an editor in order to use git? Sure, I guess. If you get to spend all day working with neckbeards.
For the rest of us, having a pretty UI helps. And I don't see how is being user friendly and offering to just do it can ever be a bad thing. Especially when the alternative is forcing people to figure out how a config file works. Should it be in ~/.gitconfiguration? ~/.gitconfig? Whats that . mean? That ~? A typo'd and it gets made it in ~/.gticonfig..
I have some stuff in my gitconfig that I like having, but, would never be able to figure it out if someone didn't A. tell me what to do or B. make a script that did it for me. And no, I didn't enjoy reading dozens of git manpages to try and find what I wanted. It really sucked.
You seem confused. If you want a pretty UI, what the hell are you doing on the command line? Go grab one of the half-dozen Git GUI apps out there. There's a few decent ones out these days, and they'll handle things like setting up your name/email.
You're arguing in favor of having a "pretty UI" _at the expense_ of functionality. That's absolutely inappropriate for a command-line tool, especially one that was originally designed for use by hard-core computer programmers. If you want a pretty UI, go use a tool that wraps Git and provides one, like I just suggested. Sure, if you want to suggest that Git's error upon not having a username/email is made a bit friendlier, that's a reasonable suggestion. But you're suggesting something which would actually be a negative change for a lot of people (i.e. changing a hard error into a potential data loss situation).
Here is how I read this thread - someone links to a tool that wraps git with a prettier command line UI, you say that you don't need that, here's some magical aliases, others say but those aren't pretty like the tool we were originally discussing, you say "if you want a pretty UI, go use a tool that wraps Git and provides one" ...like the one from the original link? I don't get your argument, is there a reasonable place for prettier UIs wrapping common Git commands, or do we all just need to be more hardcore and learn to write good aliases?
Did you even read the OP? There is no tool. It's a blog post with a wish list for a magical tool that the author wants someone to create. Try reading the article next time before you go argue in the comments.
Users that are capable of diagnosing what went wrong with their repo are also comfortable setting username/email in the config.