[Gnu-arch-users] Re: [GNU-arch-dev] Re: how to fix a bad log message?

[John S. Yates, Jr.]

I understand the model.  I understand the purity/simplicity/rigor arguments.
But I also recognize that in the real world things are not nearly as clean
as you all want to make it.

If you want arch to be widely adopted then it needs to accommodate real use
cases from users of increasingly lesser technical competence.  Tom seems to
think that user desires for an undo capability is already covered by a
design
that expects the regular piercing of abstraction boundaries:

> [The big sekret: part of the virtue of our trivially simple archive format
> is that you can do `undo' by hand, trivially. It's just that, in so doing,
> you are simultaneously "proving" that (a) you know you are cheating and
accept
> the consequences; (b) you have at least a little bit of a clyue about the
> archive format.]

To me that is a copout and a recipe for arch acquiring a bad reputation as
those increasingly less competent users actually attempt such exercises.

Even the most limited undo scheme could actually become a distinctive arch
capability, unmatched in most (all?) competing RCSs.

/john