Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: DARCS

[Mirian Crzig Lennox]

address@hidden (Miles Bader) writes:
> Bruce Stephens <address@hidden> writes:
> > OpenCM has an initially irritating feature that when you check out a
> > project, you need to specify a "-C <dir>" option, otherwise it checks
> > out into the current directory.  But actually it's a useful feature,
> > because the .opencm stuff (the equivalent of {arch}) goes in the
> > parent directory, so it's out of the way of the actual data.
> 
> So you have a nearly empty wrapper directory around _every one_ of your
> source trees?  Gah...

Why "gah?"  The alternative is to clutter the user's source tree with
magical names like "{arch}", ",,what-changed.foo" and ++log.bar",
requiring added complexity to tell them apart from actual source.
Directories are the canonical way to partition namespace in Unix, so
we may as well use them.  Let the kernel do our work for us rather
than requiring every utility know how to recognise junk paths from
source.

This is also the rationale behind the common practice of keeping build
directories separate from one's source trees.

--Mirian