[darcs-users] Command renamings and hide/show

Marnix Klooster mklooster at baan.nl
Thu May 13 13:02:16 UTC 2004


Bennett Todd (bet at rahul.net) wrote on Thursday, 13 May, 2004 14:42:

> 2004-05-13T12:02:38 Marnix Klooster:

> > * Rename 'repository' to 'branch' throughout.
 
> I'd argue against systematically renaming repository to branch,
> because folks with CVS experience think of branches as being more
> complex, tricky things.

OK, you're right about that perception.  But perhaps darcs can change
that perception to "branches needn't be complex".  (Just like the
Cecil programming language convinced me that multiple inheritance
needn't be complex, even though in C++ it has a lot of complexities.)

> > This gives four possible combinations:
> > 
> >  * visible recorded: everything that is stored in the repository, and
> >                      is visible in the working directory.
> >    
> >  * visible unrecorded: diff between working directory and the 'visible
> >                        recorded' patches
> 
> aka whatsnew? Or is this a different concept?

I did not try to invent something new.

What I tried to do is to take darcs as it is (as much as possible),
and find the simplest possible concepts to explain what darcs does,
and then find the best matching command names etc. for that.

That way darcs is as easy as possible to explain and use.

The key idea I had was the visible/invisible distinction, which leads
to new 'hide' and 'show' commands, and replaces the existing and much-
discussed 'unpull', 'revert', and 'unrevert' commands by equivalents
that are hopefully easier to understand.

Finally, it leads to a new 'invisible recorded' combination (i.e.,
patches that are in the repository but not in the working directory)
that seems to be very useful to temporarily get a few patches out of
the was without creating a new repository.

> -Bennett

Groetjes,
 <><
Marnix
-- 
Marnix Klooster 
mklooster at baan.nl




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