[darcs-users] [BUG] darcs push --dry-run fails

Juliusz Chroboczek jch at pps.jussieu.fr
Tue Jun 29 19:11:44 UTC 2004


>> You'd need to manually remove _darcs/prefs/lastrepo in order to
>> switch parents.

PL> Ah, that's what you meant :)

PL> Yes, I personally like it a lot, but I fear the user interface
PL> will become less discoverable than what it is now.

Well, naive users don't use multiple repos, they usually just pull,
record and send.  So they shouldn't even notice the change.

Experienced users define a standard flow of patches between a number
of local repos, and occasionally cherry-pick a patch from a repo that
is not the parent.  So sticky parents is what they want.

Now non-sticky parents are very dangerous if you work with multiple
branches, and I think that the danger is serious enough to warrant
darcs getting in your way a wee bit.  I've got two branches: polipo,
which contains all my current work, and polipo-stable, which only gets
bug fixes.  Most of the time, I implement a bug fix in polipo-stable,
and pull it into polipo.  However, once in a while, I do the opposite:
I implement a bug fix in polipo, and pull it into polipo-stable.  I'm
afraid to think about the mess that I'll have to fix when I forget to
reset polipo-stable/lastrepo after the pull.

(Once again, I'm getting the feeling that I'm the only person trying
to use darcs with multiple branches.)

PL> Either the user needs to know that there is such a file and know how to
PL> delete it himself,

He already knows about _darcs/prefs/author, so he'll most likely look
under prefs.  (I'd rather not add an option -- a separate prefs editor
will appear in due time, and for now editing the files under _darcs/prefs
manually is good enough.)

PL> Many small options a software package hard to learn make.

I agree.  man ghc.

                                        Juliusz




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