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

Arne Babenhauserheide arne_bab at web.de
Mon Aug 13 04:35:58 CDT 2012


Am Montag, 13. August 2012, 11:24:04 schrieb Adrian Buehlmann:
> On 2012-08-13 10:42, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > Am Donnerstag, 9. August 2012, 22:48:52 schrieb Adrian Buehlmann:
> >> What's more, your "shoot in the foot" argument is a complete red
> >> herring. If you start using a tool that's supposed to store your data
> >> but you refuse to read anything before using it, then you have clearly
> >> done something wrong. Blame yourself.
> > 
> > So that’s what I should tell a git user who wants to contribute to my
> > project?
> Yes. At some point they have to accept the fact that the term "branch"
> has a different definition from what it has on git. It's not the job of
> the UI texts of Mercurial to be tailored for git refugees who refuse to
> read help texts before applying commands.

Users don’t read manuals. Just catering to the 0-20% who do is a low goal…

> Assuming that a git user can blindly start using Mercurial without
> learning the concepts, and by assuming everything will work the same as
> in git, or Mercurial will warn, is a false attitude IMHO. That won't work.

For starting to contribute to my project, it will work. That’s the point I 
want to make: A user with git-experience is a user, too.

Just letting him run into the knife will not only hurt him and my project (he 
is less likely to contribute the small fixes which often start bigger 
contributions, if the tool hurts him), but it will also reflect badly on 
Mercurial, because he will think that hg is hard to use - and tell his 
friends.

Git is hard to use. Most accept that, when someone tells them.
Hg is different. It just works for most people.

> [FWIW, you seem to contradict with yourself (judging from your other
> emails).]

Not really. I want a different warning, but I like it that we have one.

Best wishes,
Arne
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