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

[Adrian Irving-Beer]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:19:12AM -0500, John S. Yates, Jr. wrote:

> 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.

Actually, in the 'real world', things are even cleaner, since everyone
knows you can't go back to fix your mistakes, and there's no mailing
list to request that feature on. ;)

But of course you mean software management in the real world.  Do you
have examples of when this proposed undo functionality is required?
Examples where simply committing a reversal isn't sufficient?

Without examples, I can only guess at why you and many others don't
find committed reversals adequate.  My best guess so far is posterity
and perfectionism, which (just FYI) is why the insistence on undo
seems somewhat petty to me.

> 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:

I can't speak for Tom, but I don't believe Arch covers undo any more
than, say, PC retailers cover overclocking.  Both offer the ability
for the *user* to pop the hood and muck with the internals, but that's
at her own risk (like everything else).  That's a pretty traditional
aspect of free software.

[snip quote from Tom]
> 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.

Okay, so we should stop telling users how to do a manual undo?
Considering how often that issue comes up, I'm all for that. ;)

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

Not really.  CVS has it.  Monotone sounds like it does, given its
model.  I've heard Darcs has at least reordering of patches; don't
know if it has removal.

But these have designs that match that capability, or else they
wouldn't have that capability at all.  CVS has only a single
repository with no branching, so deleting revisions isn't an issue.
And last I checked, Monotone is all just about accepting patches or
not anyway.

Arch is just much more linear than any of that.  Each action is
recorded as it's performed.  If one of your actions was a mistake,
then the proper (official) way to correct it is to perform and record
some more actions.

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