Suffering from CVS mindset

[Harry Putnam]

Martin Geisler <mg at lazybytes.net> writes:

>   cd ~/scripts/perl
>   hg commit -m "Fixed bug."
>   cd ~/scripts/shell
>   hg commit -m "Optimized."
>
> The difference is that the Perl scripts and the shell scripts now live
> in different repositories and have different and independent
> histories. The units-of-work before more well-defined this way. Like
> Masklinn said, there is no overhead associated with creating
> repositories in Mercurial (compare "mkdir foo" with "hg init foo"), so
> this is the suggested way to do things.

Hope I'm not sounding like a argumentative dodo, but.....

First, that is a false premise (I think).  You can't compare mkdir foo
against  hg init foo) .. (both are needed in either case so you would'nt
compare one against the other) 
And especially not to creating one repo for all.

It would be more like mkdir * 12 hg init * 12

As apposed to mkdir * 13 <to have a top level>,  hg init * 1 <in that
top level>

And so it would be with any other commands wouldn't it?

That is, instead of hg commit, it would be hg commit * 12.

Its entirely possible I'm missing the boat here... as I've mentioned
starting out I'm a total green horn, not to mention a tab bit `thick'.
But wouldn't it take 12 times the commands to have 12 repos for 12
projects?  As opposed to 1 repo with 12 directories, each containing
files and subdir.

I think at root, I'm really just not getting why its better to keep
record of changes in an entire repo with every commit, as apposed to
keep record of changes to individual files.

I guess I can see a big benefit when the entire repo is strongly
related, and a single set of software is expected to emerge.

Beyond that.... I start to not be able to see how things are supposed
to work for someone mostly interested in individual files.

Once again, it could very well be due to being a simpleton or just not
enough experience with it yet.  I ran cvs for around 12 yrs and never
went beyond the most basic usage. And was still fumbling around at
times after all that usage.

So, its likely to take me a while to absorb the different kind of
focus.