Why does git not have a 'git ignore' command? [closed]

Question

I understand how to setup git to use the .gitignore file to ignore files but was wondering why this has not been a command feature that makes this task slightly less tedious. I will post this question to the git-scm mailing list later but was wondering if anyone here might have a valid reason for the lack of a ...

'git ignore <pattern>'

... feature. I am sure there are other developers that would find this feature useful.

Answer 1

Probably because it's just as quick to open .gitignore in a text editor or do $ echo <pattern> >> .gitignore.