Confusing `hg add` + `hg remove` behavior

[Simon King]

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 1:54 AM, Gregory Szorc <gregory.szorc at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of my coworkers just blogged about confusing behavior w.r.t. performing
> a `hg remove` on a file that was `hg add`ed but not yet committed:
> http://code.v.igoro.us/posts/2016/09/user-guidance-vs-dwim.html
>
> Is there room to change the behavior of `hg remove` to behave more like `hg
> forget` in this scenario? Or is the best we can do a wording change?
>

If it were to change, what do you think it should do? "hg rm" deletes
from the working copy whereas "hg forget" doesn't. By saying that rm
should behave more like forget, are you suggesting that in the
specific case of a file having been added but not committed, "hg rm"
no longer deletes from the working copy? That sounds pretty nasty to
me.

The current behaviour is trying to prevent data loss by refusing to
delete a file which has never been committed. Maybe the error message
could say something like:

(use "hg rm -f" to delete the file from your working copy, or "hg
forget" to stop tracking it without deleting it)

...although that's still a bit long. Giving the 2 alternatives makes
it clearer why hg hasn't just DWIM.

Simon