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

[Ashley Moran]

On 16 Jul 2009, at 06:20, Dan Pascu wrote:

> Actually one can look at this the other way around. Every time I  
> have to work with svn, hg, git, it strikes me how difficult is to  
> use them compared to darcs. They do things in twisted ways, or have  
> unnatural names for their commands (mostly because they just copied  
> them from previous systems). Following your argument I'd say there  
> is a strong case for a language reform in git, hg, svn, ... :P
>
> It would alienate me to see that a very simple and intuitive command  
> set is butchered down and morphed into something else just to make  
> it easier for git users not to be surprised. If anyone hopes that  
> this would attract more git/hg/svn/whatever users to darcs, she's  
> overly optimistic. None will leave their favorite VCS to move to a  
> little known system that has a similar command set. Honestly how  
> many git users switching to mercurial or the other way around do  
> anyone here know about?
>
> That's not to say I'm against improving the command names. But what  
> I consider improvement in their case is making them better express  
> what they do so they're intuitive to use. I do not consider an  
> improvement mimicking other VCS' commands just because they're more  
> popular.


I'm sold.  darcs should use the terms that make sense, not the terms  
that other (possibly very different) more popular systems use.

Some things I think darcs has got right: record/push is one.  Some  
things I'm not sure about: changes is one, for me at least.  Some  
things I'm pretty sure could be improved: revert and rollback come to  
mind.

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