[darcs-users] Naming consistency between darcs and other DVCSs

[Trent W. Buck]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

> "rollback" has a precise meaning in database theory.  It means to
> undo the last transaction (possibly incomplete) in the history.  IMO
> Mercurial uses this correctly, Darcs does not.

Erm, in Darcs 2 rollback records a new inverse patch.  That is, it's
something like

    darcs diff -p foo | patch -p1 -R
    darcs record -m 'rollback foo'

I would have thought that a rolled-back transaction (in database terms)
is closer to obliterate, since the end result is that you have no record
of that transcation, rather than X + -X = 0.  Admittedly, IANADBA.