Option to set default authors for `cargo new|init`

[Kladki]

Problem

When making a new cargo package, I rarely set the author to anything other than myself. I don't want to have to write out my full name and email whenever I make a new package.

Proposed Solution

Inside the cargo configuration file, there should be an option to set default authors which should be set when running cargo new or cargo init.

Notes

No response

[epage]

We used to infer package.author (#2696) but we then removed setting author in #9282. RFC 3052 explicitly called out that we'd not set the field. This proposal is for making it an opt-in but the value of package.authors is fairly limited. In fact, I wonder if we should instead be deprecating it.

[weihanglo]

What is the difference between the current status and deprecating it. Is it like an announcement that Cargo no longer develops any new feature for it?

[epage]

Some combination of

• Document it as deprecated (and reject features)
• Provide a deprecation warning on use
• Remove on next edition

[weihanglo]

• Document it as deprecated (and reject features)

This looks fine, if we focus on rejectin features.

• Provide a deprecation warning on use
• Remove on next edition

This would push people away from using package.authors. Popular crates like clap provide crate_authors! macro to populate the value at compile time. And there are thousands of uses of it on GitHub.
Do we prepare to have that churn for the ecosystem?

As an alternative, we could decide to freeze any feature regarding package.authors in this issue. Whenever a new feature request pops up, we link to this issue.

[epage]

clap no longer includes the authors in any output by default. Looking at a sampling of those search results:

• package.authors is set and authors is set on clap, but clap isn't showing it
• package.authors is not set and authors is set on clap, but clap isn't showing it
• they are using clap v2 which means it is likely legacy code

[epage]

In the Cargo team meeting, we discussed the status of package.authors and seemed to be in favor of deprecating it, so I've posted #15068.