Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Utterly painless arch?

[Zack Brown]

On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 10:13:42PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> Zack,
> 
> I've got to say that I greatly appreciate the effort to make arch
> easier to use.  As someone who has started using tla very recently, I
> feel qualified to talk on the topic, and rather disagree with your
> recommendations.
> 
> Comments follow:
> 
> Zack Brown <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > So to make it utterly painless to start using arch, I think the first thing
> > would be to create a tla command that takes care of a whole bunch of stuff,
> > such as creating an initial archive, branch, etc., and automate all the
> 
> What, you mean:
> 
> tla make-archive
> tla archive-setup

you forgot registering your user ID. And yes, that's what I mean. Those
are administrative steps that a user should not have to worry about if
they just want to try out the version control features.

The user has a directory they want to work on. They should be able to
run a single command, and then be able to perform version control
operations on that directory.

I forget if it was Tom who suggested just having a wrapper script to
handle all that. That would certainly be sufficient, I think.

> > The second big piece of overhead is the naming conventions imposed on
> > repositories (I know, I know, but let's avoid the flames please). Its enough
> > of a pain just understanding the category--branch--etc style, let alone
> > remembering it later. Someone who just wants to experiment with tla doesn't
> 
> I haven't found it difficult *at all*.
> 
> I find the use of filenames starting with = (which must be escaped in
> bash) and + (which confuses many editors) far more difficult and
> annoying.

Yes, but you don't need to read any documentation in order to figure out
what to do with those files. That's the difference.

> 
> > Those two things are the big obstacles IMO. In order for a user to just
> > sit down and use tla, there has to be first of all, a quick way to start up
> > a project; and second of all, a way to get around the complex repo naming
> > stuff, even if only temporarily.
> 
> I don't think either are complicated.

They're not complicated, they just require the overhead of studying
docs.

Be well,
Zack

> 
> -- John
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Gnu-arch-users mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-arch-users
> 
> GNU arch home page:
> http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnu-arch/

-- 
Zack Brown