[PATCH 3 of 5] shelve: use an --unshelve parameter instead of a command

[Pierre-Yves David]

On 09/21/2013 06:22 PM, Martin Geisler wrote:
> Matt Mackall<mpm at selenic.com>  writes:
>
>> We've got a bunch of commands of the form foo/foos to make/list:
>>
>> 	tag/tags
>> 	bookmark/bookmarks
>> 	branch/branches
> Most of our commands follow the 'hg<verb>' pattern: add, remove, push,
> and pull. Some old commands use 'hg<noun>' instead, e.g., heads,
> parents, and manifest.

There is active command and passive command. noun tend to be used by 
passive command (eg: hg heads vs hg listheads, hg summary vs hg summarize)

> The words above share an interesting feature: tag, bookmark, and branch
> can all be used as both verbs and nouns. This makes the plural form
> particularly nice for listing the objects and the singular form can be
> read as a verb denoting the action you want Mercurial to do.
>
> For this case, the noun is "shelf" and the verb is "shelve":
>
>    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shelf (plural: "shelves")
>    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shelve
>
> That could be taken as an argument for having 'hg shelves' for listing
> shelves and 'hg shelve' (verb) for making shelves.

As I noted in a previous email, `shelve` + `shelves` prevents the use of 
short form. There is only two commandes that suffer from this now: 
tag/tags and branch/branches.
`tag` is a short form by itself and branch is not so frequently used in 
a sequence of action (in regard to usage of commit, or mq for example)

> In general, I think it is nice if the action implied by the verb isn't
> changed completely by a flag. So 'hg revert --all' is good, the flag
> extends the command to work on all files. By this logic, 'hg shelve
> --unshelve' since the verb is reversed.
>
> A command like 'hg bookmark --delete' is also good since "bookmark" can
> be read as a noun. Without a flag "bookmark" becomes a verb and the
> command does it's primary action: bookmarking a changeset. I'm not sure
> if this logic I just made up extends to other commands.

If we used --apply instead of --unshelve. That would fit your description.

(note saying I like it. Just saying that there is a flag based version 
that looks less silly on this aspect)

-- 
Pierre-Yves David