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

Adrian Buehlmann adrian at cadifra.com
Mon Aug 13 04:51:57 CDT 2012


On 2012-08-13 11:35, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> 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…

You are theorizing up to a point where it becomes pretty meaningless.

>> 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.

A git user is a user, sure. What does that tell us?

> 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.

How on earth is applying 'hg branch' letting him "run into the knife"?

Normally, I would expect that a user who is using a tool which is new to
him or her would make some experiments and see where he or she gets. And
spend a minute or too reading help.

Expecting that Mercurial will just work exactly the same a git is just
arrogant.

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

Sure. But requiring that it works like git is wrong.

>> [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.

But you acknowledge that warning users that they might have taken the
wrong command is just arrogant as well, right?

And why do we need a "warning"? There is nothing wrong with using the
branch command.

Just as a reminder: My proposal was to write:

  $ hg branch foo
  marked working directory as branch foo
  (the branch name will be permanently recorded on commit)

If I understood you correctly, you liked that. Now you seem to argue
differently.




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