[darcs-devel] the straw that broke the camel's back

[Jason Dagit]

On 7/12/07, Stefan O'Rear <stefanor at cox.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 01:55:26AM +0200, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
> > > The fact that this problem occurs rather often suggests that there are
> > > serious issues with darcs as it stands.
> >
> > I think we are all aware of that.  In its current state, Darcs has
> > been a great research project, and has borne some very interesting
> > results:
> >
> >   - the ``repos as an unordered set of patches'' mostly works and is
> >     easy on the brain;
> >   - it is possible to design a VC system with a user interface made
> >     for humans.
> >
> > On the other hand, Darcs has four very serious and one moderately
> > serious issue:
> >
> >   - Darcs is not complete (some patches fail to commute);
> >   - Darcs is not correct (will sometimes write an incorrect repo);
> >   - Darcs is subject to combinatorial explosion;
> >   - Darcs is coded inefficiently in some areas.
> >
> > It is not entirely clear to me what the right thing to do is -- work
> > on improving Darcs, or throw away everything and start again from
> > scratch now that we all know so much more.  I really wish I had the
> > opportunity to buy a few pints to David, Erik, Tommy, Ian and whoever
> > else and discuss all of this.
>
> Certainly; I think darcs is far too old for a first-system.  It needs a
> complete rewrite, and I would like to do this myself.  The main reason I
> haven't done this is lack of adequate documentation.
>
> Over in Greater Haskell Land you can learn the results of most good
> ideas in the form of the creator's 800-page doctoral thesis.  Too bad
> David Roundy isn't a CS major :)
>
> (Specifically, the documentation isn't very precise and doesn't give me
> much of a clue about what mergers and conflictors are, or even which is
> used for what circumstance.  I've already invented a conflict semantics
> of my own, but I'd like to be compatible with darcs :) )

Mergers and conflictors are deprecated.  If you want to understand
patch theory better, search through darcs-devel for threads I've been
in on the last few months.  An unofficial goal of my masters thesis is
to make patch theory more accessible by explaining it in detail.  If
you try to read what I've written and give me feedback that would be
very valuable.

Jason