[darcs-users] patch numbers and annotate and diff etc.

[Thomas Zander]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 02:23:31PM -0400, David Roundy wrote:
> My current leaning is to implement both forward and backward counting,
> using negative numbers for the backwards counting.  This takes a bit more
> to explain, but seems to almost achieve the best of both worlds.  I guess
> what it misses is the simplicity of explanation that the backwards-counting
> scheme alone would have, but probably that's not a particularly big issue.

Next to the steaper learning curve the numbering like you propose is also
very easy to confuse with unique numbers and revisions like cvs/svn have.
This is giving the user hints of usage that are not appropriate and
will make it very confusing to explain this whole numbering scheme.

I seem to be the only one that worries about learability of darcs verses
configurability, and you'll probably dismissed this point (which I made
a couple of times before already) again; but since Michael can change
opinions by repeating the same issue over and over^2, I have to try..

Darcs does not have an inherant numbering scheme; it derives its strength
from this and thats good.  Darcs is easier to understand if you
understand this fact.   re-adding numbers makes sense;  but its plain
wrong to pretend to have versions like old systems do.  Only the experts
are going to benefit from that; and you don't get new experts without
newbees that grok darcs from day one.
Upwards counting numbers will be exactly the same as the old systems for
starting users.  Everyone starts with one user and one repository (or
a variation).

Expect lots of bugreports on inconsistant version numbers from them!

-- 
Thomas Zander