[darcs-users] Possible initial checkin enhancements (was: darcs on MS Windows)

[Kevin Smith]

David Roundy wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 08:59:33AM -0800, Kevin Smith wrote:
>>Perhaps in some future version, darcs could have a list of file types 
>>that should be individually confirmed before being added. That way, you 
>>could still do a recursive add on a new project, but would be likely to 
>>end up with the results that you really wanted.
> 
> Something like this could be added, although I'm hesitant to try to make
> darcs "know" too much about how users should be handling their
> repositories.  It's better to give it the flexibility to allow users to
> choose for themselves what they want it to do.

Yes, exactly. Currently, there is a list of files that will be ignored 
by default. Any other file will be silently added by default. I am 
looking for that middle ground that does not assume that every project 
will have the same set of boring files. Or, for that matter, that within 
a project all the potentially boring files are really boring.

I also think having different behavior for recursive gets and 
non-recursive might be helpful. Or perhaps the split is between adds 
that only specify a single file vs. wildcard adds.

> A subset of this idea might be to add an interactive flag (and possibly gui
> as well) to add, which would prompt the user for each file.  Then they
> could approximate your feature idea by running:
> 
> darcs add --recursive .
> darcs add --boring --recursive --interactive .

This would work as long as we err on the side of putting too much in 
boring. But I'm not sure that's wise, either. For example, this would 
add every .jar file, which in many projects would be wrong. I suppose if 
the binary speed problem has been solved, this might be less of a 
problem. I guess my perceptions are clouded by the problems I have had 
with past versions of darcs.

It would also be a problem for me because it would ask me about every 
single .class file (there are hundreds). I wouldn't use that feature.

I'll think more about it before proposing something concrete. I agree 
that it's not exactly a core feature, but also I feel strongly that it 
is one that will improve the first experience most people will have with 
darcs.

Kevin