Why you don't want to allow disabling "branches are global and permanent, did you want a bookmark"?

[Augie Fackler]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Adrian Buehlmann <adrian at cadifra.com> wrote:
> On 2012-08-09 15:35, Augie Fackler wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 9, 2012, at 4:00 AM, Adrian Buehlmann wrote:
>>
>>> On 2012-08-09 10:43, Laurens Holst wrote:
>>> The config option is not needed, because there is no need for such a
>>> warning at all.
>>
>> Nonsense. I can't count the number of users that have expressed hatred for Mercurial because it's branches aren't git branches, and then as soon as I show them bookmarks they are happy as can be. In my experience talking to users, the vast majority of users that look for branches really want bookmarks.
>
> And how does that relate to what I wrote exactly?
>
> You have a number of users who haven't yet discovered that Mercurial
> isn't git. Great. So what?

So they blame the tool for their own uninformed decisions, and we have
to work with that reality. I think the warning is a good thing as a
result.

[snip lots of explanation and general violent agreement]

> Mercurial has a good tradition of showing "what's next" in the (..)
> part. That's why I proposed to do:
>
>   $ hg branch foo
>   marked working directory as branch foo
>   (the branch name will be permanently recorded on commit)
>
> There's really no need to mention an unrelated concept (bookmarks) there.

Yes, there is: the (hypothetical git) user will get angry that the
branch is permanent, and decide Mercurial is a useless piece of trash
and never look back. I've had much better discussions with "recovering
git users" with this warning in place as-is.

>
> We shouldn't start trying to make Mercurial look like git. There is no
> need to do so. And we can't anyway.

Nobody's saying we should (well, I'm not). I just want to acknowledge
the world we live in and try and help users not get surprised.

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