Re: [Gnu-arch-users] What is arch? (Alternative answer)

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

> >  Do you have an alternative metaphor? It's true its not strictly a 
> > spiderweb (since it can only merge from common ancestors), but its 
> > much less a tree...
>
> I'm not sure that there's any real distinction here that's worth 
> trumpeting about.  I don't think it is "much less a tree."  arch 
> happens to be very good at merging in an N-tree branch structure, aka 
> star topology.

  I think arch is better at working the way developers actually work, 
as opposed to the way that its easiest to write a revision control 
system. So I think that's worth trumpeting.

> >  I suppose that arch has a "detour" model instead of a "tree model", 
> > in that it assumes that while code may wander off for a bit, it will 
> > eventually come back.
>
> Nah.  No such assumption.  Good tools for when it does, however.

  Well, arch at least realizes that detouring is a common case.
> > Most revision systems don't assume that, so their merging sucks.
>
> True conclusion, wrong reasons.

 I dunno. Seems like svn suffers because they thought about the 
branching aspect instead of the merging aspect.