[darcs-users] removing commands or moving commands into an "advanced" section

David Roundy droundy at abridgegame.org
Sun Sep 5 09:35:42 UTC 2004


On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:27:36AM -0300, Zooko Journeyman wrote:
> I'm resending this because David didn't respond to it last time.  Last 
> time I combined three different suggestions into one letter.  This time 
> I'm sending each suggestion separately.  If David doesn't respond to it 
> this time I'll let it drop.  ;-)

This summer's been busy...

> On 2004, Aug 03, , at 10:52, Zooko wrote:
> 
> A third thing that might help is if there were fewer commands, or if 
> some commands were relegated to an "advanced" section of the docs.  
> Darcs has a well-deserved reputation for being simpler and easier to 
> learn than its competitors, but as the number of commands continues to 
> grow, so this advantage might be lessening.

Yes, organizing the commands is a good idea.  I've taken a stab at breaking
the commands into categories.  Comments or criticisms are welcome.

> I could write "darcs diff -u > p && darcs revert && patch -p0 < p" 
> instead of "darcs revert && darcs unrevert" (I also used that trick 
> when I was using CVS).  So a newcomer learning darcs could safely delay 
> learning about "unrevert" until he's mastered the basic commands that 
> are absolutely required.

Actually, I'd say both revert and unrevert are advanced commands.  They are
very commonly useful advanced commands, but a user could get by quite well
without either of them... well, except that there's no other way to undo a
darcs add or a darcs replace.

> I wonder if "darcs diff" and "darcs whatsnew" shouldn't be a single 
> command which behaves differently depending on its arguments (as "cvs 
> diff" does).  I don't really understand what "darcs whatsnew" does that 
> "darcs diff" doesn't do.

In short, whatsnew tells you what darcs thinks has changed, and diff tells
you what diff(1) thinks has changed.  So whatsnew lets you know about adds,
moves, replaces and deletions.  And about setprefs.

> I still don't understand how "darcs unpull" relates to "darcs unrecord" 
> and "darcs rollback", so even if "unpull" and "rollback" aren't 
> convenience commands, they are certainly advanced commands.  (Actually 
> I've now learned what "darcs rollback" is for.  But it could still be 
> moved to an "advanced" section because newcomers don't need it right 
> away.)

Agreed.
-- 
David Roundy
http://www.abridgegame.org




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