What is a "tip"?

[Matt Mackall]

On Mon, 2011-12-05 at 20:57 -0500, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> I think this is a documentation bug. Consider,
> 
>     jordi at Iris:~$ hg help tip
>     [...]
>         The tip revision (usually just called the tip) is the
>         changeset most recently added to the repository (and therefore
>         the most recently changed head).
> 
> as opposed to
> 
>     jordi at Iris:~$ hg help update
>     [...]
>         Update the repository's working directory to the specified
>         changeset. If no changeset is specified, update to the tip of
>         the current named branch.
> 
> My point is that tip says that there is one unique tip, whereas hg
> update says that each branch has a tip. The confusion matters if you
> remember that "hg update" by default updates to tip, but not to the
> global tip that "hg help tip" refers to, but to the latest commit made
> on the current named branch.

$ hg help glossary
[...]

    Tip
        The changeset with the highest revision number. It is the changeset
        most recently added in a repository.

    Tip, branch
        The head of a given branch with the highest revision number. When a
        branch name is used as a revision identifier, it refers to the branch
        tip. See also 'Branch, head'. Note that because revision numbers may
        be different in different repository clones, the branch tip may be
        different in different cloned repositories.

Plain 'tip' is a legacy of pre-named-branch Mercurial but the Ministry
of Truth hasn't finished erasing its existence.

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.