I needed my top-level .gitignore file to ignore the contents of my $H…

…OME directory, so I went back to naming my "core.excludesfile" .gitexcludes

.gitconfig

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 [core]
-    excludesfile = ~/.gitignore
+    excludesfile = ~/.gitexcludes
 [user]
     name = David Rogers
     email = david@ethos-development.com

.gitexcludes

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+## Mac metadata
+.DS_Store
+
+## Subversion metadata
+.svn/
+
+## Vim metadata
+*.sw[po]
+*.vim
+
+## Eclipse metadata
+.buildpath
+.project
+.settings
+
+## Python compiled/optimized
+*.py[co]
+
+## Apache metadata (project-level only)
+/.htaccess

.gitignore

@@ -1,20 +1,7 @@
-## Mac metadata
-.DS_Store
+## Any kind of history files: .bash_history, .mysql_history, etc.
+.*[-_]history
+.*hst
 
-## Subversion metadata
-.svn/
+## Any subdirectory of $HOME
+*/
 
-## Vim metadata
-*.sw[po]
-*.vim
-
-## Eclipse metadata
-.buildpath
-.project
-.settings
-
-## Python compiled/optimized
-*.py[co]
-
-## Apache metadata (project-level only)
-/.htaccess