[darcs-users] post-hoc move

[Dan Pascu]

On Thursday 30 July 2009, Hamish Allan wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn<zooko at zooko.com> 
wrote:
> 
> > I'm not sure about your idea of "darcs mv" figuring out that the file had
> > already been mv'ed.  That sounds like the kind of thing that sometimes 
leads
> > me to further confusion because it is "too clever" and it becomes hard for
> > me to figure out what the tool may or may not have done.
> 
> Personally, I don't think "darcs move" should do the actual physical
> move at all. "darcs add" doesn't physically create a file; "darcs
> remove" doesn't physically delete one. Likewise, "darcs move" should
> simply mean "change your concept of what this file is called".

I disagree. From a usability point of view, this would be a regression, as it 
would always require me to type 2 commands to do the operation. Of course with 
add it doesn't add the file because it cannot create one out of thin air. You 
have to create the file somehow before you can actually add it to darcs. With 
remove it doesn't remove it because that's the semantics: to remove the file 
from darcs control but keep it around on disk. If I want to get rid of it 
entirely I just remove it on the filesystem. Currently all these operations 
can be done in 1 step (except file creation for add, but I do not expect add 
to create and populate a file as well anyway).

-- 
Dan