[darcs-users] what about removing the unrevert command?

Eric Kow kowey at darcs.net
Sun Apr 3 23:10:39 UTC 2011


On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 00:19:26 +0200, Radoslav Dorcik wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 11:45 PM, Eric Kow <kowey at darcs.net> wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 14:26:27 +0200, Guillaume Hoffmann wrote:
> >> - it would reduce the number of concepts exposed to the users in the
> >> manual and in darcs help
> >
> > No. Unrevert is just the undo of revert
> 
> darcs revert can create .bak<n> files as a last resort for recovery of mistake.

That's true, and I appreciate creative alternatives.  But hey, let
me drag out some more of that UI/design crap I keep reading about.

First of all, we want to minimise (visual, cognitive, memory, physical)
work for our users.  So having different mechanisms for the same sort of
things (for some things you run a command, for other things, you do some
operation on a file, etc) is IMHO an unnecessary source of cognitive/memory
work for our users.  The ideal is users never having to touch a manual.

Second, part of the learnability of the ease of Darcs UI can be
explained in terms of some UI principles, eg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_User_Interface_Design

- structure <== symmetry of commands? push/pull etc 
- simplicity
- visibility
- feedback
- tolerance <== undo!
- reuse     <== unfoo

The .bak<n> files preserve tolerance, but they kind of violate reuse.
Really Darcs should be using the same sort of user concepts as widely
as possible.

This stuff isn't easy, especially when principles conflict with each other.
:-( and I don't think any of us are designers (and for that matter, do you
really want to take UI advice from a guy who still uses mutt+vim?)

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
For a faster response, try +44 (0)1273 64 2905 or
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