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

Vincent Zweije vincent at zweije.nl
Mon Apr 4 15:17:15 UTC 2011


On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 01:28:24PM +0100, Eric Kow wrote:

||  On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 11:40:43 +0100, Miles Gould wrote:
||  > 1) I don't think I've ever used "darcs unrevert".
||  > 2) I do, on the other hand, use "git stash" A LOT. It was one of the
||  > features that caused my last team to adopt git. If it had been clear to
||  > me that revert/unrevert could be used to implement "darcs stash", I'd
||  > probably have used them for that purpose.

Me, I hardly ever use unrevert. I feel that unrevert info is too fragile
to rely on, because it is destroyed too easily by a careless answer to
"this will make unrevert impossible".

||  > 4) My least favourite thing about darcs is its chattiness. Removing
||  > a "do you want to do this?" prompt is IMHO a win.
||  
||  I agree.  I hate the unrevert prompt too and I applaud any thinking
||  that would lead to it going away.

+1

||  I also think that these qualities are desirable
||  
||  * you can undo the revert operation
||  * no need to anticipate wanting to undo that revert operation
||  * no need to remember where you saved your revert work
||  * simple retrieval mechanism
||  * no need to remember special incantations (symmetry helps)
||  
||  So what I think we should really do is ask ourselves why the "this will
||  make unrevert impossible" confirmation prompt exists, and how we can
||  kill that prompt.

Humor someone who has no idea of darcs' inner workings:

Why does unrevert have to be made impossible at all? If your unrevert
info is just an unapplied patch, you could keep it around forever,
just don't apply it. It might come to conflict with patches you record
or pull later, but that's what conflict resolution is for, isn't it?

||  We've seen four ideas so far:

...five...

||  1. status quo
||  2. revert -O
||  3. .bak files
||  4. git stash/unstash
||  5. _darcs/trash (Ganesh on IRC)

I think my vote would go to #5, because it's automatic.

Timestamp the unrevert patch so you have a chance finding it back later
and keep it in some official place. Naming that place _darcs/trash sounds
like a plan.

Move obliterated and amended patches to trash as well to satisfy
dependencies of the inactive patches already there.

Perhaps darcs needs to start nagging users when trash fills up with
ancient patches, though space is cheap. Let's cross that bridge when we
get to it.

Oh, and it paves the way for in-repo branching, I think, as a place to
store inactive patches.

Ciao.                                                            Vincent.
-- 
Vincent Zweije <vincent at zweije.nl>   | "If you're flamed in a group you
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~zweije/>      | don't read, does anybody get burnt?"
[Xhost should be taken out and shot] |            -- Paul Tomblin on a.s.r.
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