Bazaar Explorer and bzr-git

[Russel Winder]

Jelmer,

On Fri, 2009-10-23 at 17:39 +0200, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-10-23 at 17:33 +0200, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:
> > On Fri, 2009-10-23 at 12:07 +0100, Russel Winder wrote:
> > > Using Bazaar Explorer on a shared repository containing a mirror branch
> > > bound the a remote Git repository and two feature branches taken from
> > > the mirror, asking for the "Local Changes" or "Missing Revisions" on the
> > > mirror leads to the error dialogue:
> > > 
> > > 	bzr: ERROR: This operation is not supported by the Git smart server protocol.
> > > 
> > >  Is this a problem with bzr-git or with git itself?
> > This is intentional. The git smart server protocol (git+ssh://, git://)
> > basically only allows you to upload revisions or fetch revisions. It
> > does not allow you to inspect the contents of the remote repository in
> > the same way that Bazaar does - Bazaar has gone through great lengths to
> > support all operations that can be done on local repositories on remote
> > repositories as well (and with reasonable performance). 
> Perhaps we need to improve the error message. Could you perhaps suggest
> a better one?

The actual phrasing of the message is fine per se.  The real problem is
that this is not actually an error, it is a missing feature by design.
Thus the fact that an error message is issued is the error.

I am not sure what I think the right solution is here as there are too
many variables:  bzr, bzr-svn, svn, bzr-git, git, Bazaar Explorer are
all involved.

In the Bazaar Explorer context it needs to be made clear when a
Subversion or Git repository (also Mercurial and Darcs?, though the
latter is increasingly less likely to be an issue I suspect) is
involved.  Although bzr-svn and bzr-git try and completely decouple
Bazaar usage and presentation from interaction with a remote repository,
the separation is not 100% and there needs to be a flag (*).  With the
flag in place then messages about Git coming from Bazaar interaction are
less likely to be shocking.

I am more worried about Subversion in this context than Git as I think
bzr-git is a useful addition to the armoury but bzr-svn is critical to
the future of Bazaar.

(*) This is critically important when NFS filestores are involved on
Linux for reasons deep in the mire of TDB !
 
-- 
Russel.
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Dr Russel Winder      Partner
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