Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: darcs vs tla

[John A Meinel]

Mark Stosberg wrote:
> On 2004-11-17, John A Meinel <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > I assume darcs requires darcs mv, darcs rm, and darcs add to make things 
> > work right. With tagline tla, I just put the files in place and I can 
> > commit.
>
>
> Something like that. It may be a little easier with darcs than it
> sounds, though. If you are starting with a clean tree and good REs
> for 'boring' and 'binary' files, you can just do:
>
>  $ darcs add -r *
>
> I think it's also relevent that darcs has simpler account for files that
> are tracked and not tracked. Boring and Binary are much more more
> intuitive than 'precious', which is not a concept I've ever felt I
> needed. 

Yeah, arch having precious/backup/junk/source/unrecognized is more 
confusing. I only ever use precious/junk/source, though generally the 
distinction is minor.

In tla, though, you don't need the binary distinction because it always 
preserves the blobs you give it. If diff is able to create a textual 
patch, that is what you get, otherwise it reverts to the whole blob 
approach.

>  From my experience with Arch, 'darcs add -r *' is noticeable faster
> than visiting eary file that can use a tagline and adding one. Not to
> mention the other 5% that may be binary and need to handled differently
> anyway.

Sure, but there is also scripts for automating adding taglines. There is 
a script in tlacontrib called "add-tagline.py" which can traverse a tree 
and add appropriate taglines to files.

Even still, the initial add probably takes longer for tla. I'm talking 
more about after the first one, when you've been using the project. Copy 
a file and it shows up.

> You do have to use "darcs mv" to move files, but that is about as easy
> to remember as just 'mv', and if you forget, you will get a reminder
> when reviewing your changes.

mv and darcs mv are about the same. But you can't use a GUI navigator 
and have it run darcs mv.

> You don't always have to use 'rm' either. From the docs [1]:
>
> "Remove should be called when you want to remove a file from your
> project, but don't actually want to delete the file. Otherwise just
> delete the file or directory, and darcs will notice that it has been
> removed."
>
>  1. http://www.darcs.net/manual/node7.html#SECTION00732000000000000000
>
> It is nice that the behavior is completely consistent, unlike tagline
> which doesn't work for binary files.

So instead of giving you the option (you can tell tla to use only 
explicit tags if you have to have 100% consistent behavior), it just 
requires you to always use darcs mv. (It is nice that it notices rm, tla 
could be updated for this, but you might have meant move instead of rm, 
and gotten yourself in trouble.)

> > I'm curious why _darcs instead of .darcs.
>
>
> I understand that it's more portable to Windows. (I don't recall what 
> problem Windows has was the leading dot, though). 

You cannot manually create a file with a leading dot in explorer. But as 
far as I know, any other program has no problem with it.

> > I'm playing with darcs a little, unfortunately I chose the pathological 
> > case of the linux kernel tree, which causes all kinds of problems. :) 
> > (darcs get needs 680MB, and about 20 minutes to run.) darcs changes took 
> > a really long time and then let me know I didn't set the runtime memory 
> > high enough.
>
>
> The Linux kernel definitely stresses darcs now. But, I think having the
> kernel available as a darcs repo will challenge the project to step up
> to tackle the scalability issues. 

True, lets hope that happens.

> > But I'm honestly willing to play around with it on a smaller scale. I 
> > didn't find darcs own repository, though. There was a link on the main 
> > page for the linux kernel, but I didn't see one for darcs itself.
>
>
> darcs get http://www.abridgegame.org/repos/darcs/

Good to know, but why isn't it part of the official page? Going there 
gives you the index page, and no indication of how to get the source.


>     Mark

John
=:->

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