[darcs-users] darcs patch: Hide the inefficient "darcs put" command.

[Josef Svenningsson]

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Eric Kow <kowey at darcs.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 05, 2008 at 00:10:42 -0800, Trent W. Buck wrote:
>> I propose that the "darcs put" command be hidden until it becomes as
>> efficient as "darcs get".  That means it is not listed in "darcs help"
>> or in the user manual.
>
> I have no objections.  Anybody else?
>

I object.

I was the one implementing the infamous put command and the reason
that I did it is that it provides for a use case which isn't possible
with the other darcs commands afaik (or at least very cumbersome). It
goes like this. I have the following setup: a laptop which I use quite
a lot for hacking and a server which provides reliable storage and
possibility to publish repositories on the web. Now, it's very common
that I create a repository on my laptop when I start hacking on a
project. After the initial bit of hacking I want to put this
repository on the server. Doing this with the get command from the
server is highly inconvenient for two reasons. First of all my laptop
doesn't have a fixed ip address so I would have to look it up.
Secondly I would have to be able to log in on my laptop via ssh or
have a small webserver installed to be able to publish the patches to
the server. On linux this is fine since sshd is fairly standard. On
Windows otoh this is very inconvenient. So I see the put command as
filling a very important niche. Note also that this use case doesn't
require put to be that efficient. It's only a very small initial repo
that is transfered with put and so its inefficiencies are bearable, at
least that's my experience.

When I implemented put I was fully aware of that it was inefficient.
My plan was to have a working command quickly and then optimize it.
Unfortunately I ran completely out of energy before having completed
the optimizations. I was kind of hoping that someone else would take
care of that but it seems that not sufficiently many people use the
put command to be bothered by its inefficiencies.

Despite its warts I think put should stay and remain documented. It
fills a small but important niche. But feel free to document the
warts.

Josef