Collect user data before they are allowed to clone public GitHub repo

I asked support@github.com; this is their reply:

We use Pygments (http://pygments.org/) to do syntax highlighting and determine which lexer to use based on each file's extension. So unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's a way to get C++ highlighting without renaming the files from *.c -> *.cpp and *.h -> *.hpp.

You can do this without losing git history of a file by using the git mv command.

Generally, all config data like passwords and database info will be kept in a config file. To keep private data safe, I usually:

• Create an example config file that is hosted with the project
• Provide documentation on modifying the example to be the actual config (rename the file, replace variables, etc.)
• Add the actual config file to .gitignore so that it is not a tracked file

Those are my thoughts ...