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

[Ivan Stankovic]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 02:23:31PM -0400, David Roundy wrote:
> > > In principle, we could support both, but that seems a bit silly.
> > 
> > I'd like to point out that --last already partially implements the
> > backwards numbering sheme, at least in so far as searching for a patch by
> > number.  So it is possible to have at least some of both.
> 
> And actually, I like Mark's idea of using negative numbers to count
> backwards, which means we wouldn't need separate flags for the two schemes.
> Except I guess we'd need separate flags if we want to ask changes to
> display the index of each patch, since we'll have to tell it whether we
> want positive or negative numbers.

Is it really necessary to add a new flag?
Why not just make changes display both, something like (132 / -3)? 

> 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.

I concur, this is definitely the way to go.

-- 
Ivan Stankovic, ivan.stankovic at fer.hr