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

Mark Stosberg mark at summersault.com
Tue Apr 5 16:10:48 UTC 2005


On 2005-04-04, Ivan Stankovic <ivan.stankovic at fer.hr> wrote:
> 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 suggestion is is not display "-3" at all and let people figure it
out. No one has complained thus fair that they needed help calculating 
the number to give to "--last". Maybe you can fit 10 patches on the
screen. That's not so hard to count visually.  

Both numbers serve to uniquely identify the patch, so only one is
necessary. The negative numbers are just an easy shorthand for people
who are thinking about it like that. If you have to go through the
trouble of looking up the number, you might as well use the "normal"
one. Seeing two "unique Identifiers" could just make it more confusing.  

Further, we could always start with just displaying the positive number,
and see if that solution works well enough, without complicating the
interface more.

    Mark





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