[darcs-users] How to extend a patch theory to fully commute

[James Cook]

> The construction works by inductively taking any pair of incommutable
> patches (in sequence, i.e. with a common middle state) and then
> "formally" commuting it. The new node is represented as that pair of
> patches. Is that, essentially, the idea?

Sorry, I should add one note here: I'm not sure it's accurate to say
the construction "inductively" makes pairs of incommutable patches
commute. That sounds like you're saying everything's built out of
transpositions. Maybe there's some equivalent formulation that works
that way, but e.g. if you want to commute A;B;C to C;B;A there's
nothing in my construction that says it's done one transposition at a
time. Instead, you identify each patch in the sequence C;B;A with a
"patch address", then simplify that patch address as much as you can.

James