[darcs-devel] patch for lazy partial repos

[Max Battcher]

On 4/11/07, David Roundy <droundy at darcs.net> wrote:
>  But which has the disadvantage that you
> could potentially end up being unexpectedly prompted for your password,
> which seems like a security-scare scenario.  i.e. you shouldn't generally
> type a password unless you expect to need to type it, and know why you need
> to type it, and I don't like darcs perhaps incorrectly prompting you for a
> password.  It's just asking for a clever phishing scheme, if users get
> accustomed to this (or if we tell them that it may be normal).

At that point it is primarily a UI issue and it should be easy hard to
build a decent interaction for this...  because Darcs is interactive
by default there shouldn't be a huge issue with this and scripters
just need to be informed that lazy patches may fail and
--fetch-missing (or whatever the flag is) shouldn't be used for
non-interactive purposes.

Something like...

darcs cha -v --fetch-missing
....  Lots of Output ....
The patch "Really Old Patch" is missing and may need to be fetched to
continue.  Fetch? [yna] y
....  Select a few more, perhaps ...
Try user at default:repo? [yno] y
Password: ****
One or more of the patches was unavailable.  Try
user at firstalternate:repo? [yno] o
Other path to try? http://somepublic/repo
5 patches fetched successfully.

It certainly seems like a good interaction would serve this purpose
fine.  This same approach should work in similar situations where
explicitly lazy patches need fetching but the URL is inaccurate
(remote repo changed/moved, pull from another lazy repository that
itself lacks the patch).

-- 
--Max Battcher--
http://www.worldmaker.net/
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of
every organism to live beyond its income. --Samuel Butler