thoughts on repository/storage/branch/checkout

[Denys Duchier]

Aaron Bentley <aaron.bentley at utoronto.ca> writes:

> It does not seem unreasonable to expect a file server's mount point to
> be the same on all software development machines.  Certainly, there are
> many ways to make it so if it is not.

I am not sure how that would work when you mix Unix and Windows.

> Inheritance would also mean that you could confuse matters terribly if
> you wound up in a situation with nested repositories.

now who's reaching for a strange and unlikely example? :-)

> That was in response to your assertion that you were not adding a
> concept.  I still hold that since my model has 3 concepts and yours has
> 4, that you have added a concept.

Fine. ignore the WORKDIR primitive since it so rubs you the wrong way.  What
about the STORE/BRANCH/CHECKOUT subset together with the regular ways of
combining them.

>> Also my primitive concepts do no not suffer from multiple
>> personalities disorder (the way the word "branch" currently does).
>
> Please, enough with the slams.  The use of "branch" to describe the
> result of "bzr init" has been with us since the beginning of the
> project.  The terminology I've been proposing would have particular term
> for it: a "Standalone Branch".

It was absolutely not meant as a slam.  The word "branch" is used in a number of
slightly different circumstances.  I appreciate that you are trying to come up
with clear terminology for the relevant cases, it's essential for effective
communication.  But terminology by itself does not reveal any underlying
regularity / simplicity / beauty of design.  It will only provide names for a
selected number of cases.

This is why I wanted to take a step back, forget about the difficulty of coming
up with clear terminology for the constructions which are expected to be most
useful, and instead try to understand these various constructions as arising
from a set of primitive concepts and a set of operations to combine them.  I was
looking for a simple and regular formal system that (to me) would represent the
essence of the system.

I don't understand why this makes you so angry.

If you have such a system, then I'd love to hear about it.

Cheers,

--Denys