[darcs-users] can we remove --no-pristine-tree?

[Nathan Gray]

On Wed, Jan 07, 2009 at 09:25:44AM +0000, Eric Kow wrote:
> - we /could/ perhaps implement --no-working-directory, which is
>   conceptually cleaner for push-only repositories, in my opinion
>   http://bugs.darcs.net/issue431 
> 
> - on the other hand, for hashed repositories --no-working-directory
>   would be less transparent than a hypothetical --no-pristine-tree,
>   because of our internal gobbledegooky filenames... we would have
>   to do something like darcs show contents and darcs show files to
>   retrieve files, yuck :-(

There are times when having no working directory is fine, or perhaps
even desireable.

I have some repositories on my server that are just there so that I
can push to and pull from them from other places on the Internet.  I
never use the repositories on the server, so do not need a working
copy.  Not having a working copy means I could use less disk space,
and that I do not have to worry about accidentally making local edits.

> What should we do?

I think allowing a --no-working-directory option would be okay.  Since
there are not pristine trees under darcs2 repositories, there is not
much reason to have the --no-pristine-tree option in darcs2, except
for cloning a darcs1 repository.

(All of my repositories are still darcs1 format, so it might be
possible for someone to still want the --no-pristine-tree option,
though I personally am unlikely to need it.)

-kolibrie