Re: [Gnu-arch-users] tla "mv" across categories

[Tom Lord]

   From: Paolo Donadeo <address@hidden>

   1) I have complex projects to manage, with many independent
   sub-projects interacting each other. The idea is to use the
   "Multi-tree Projects" feature as explained by mr. Lord, but I found
   it's explanation quite obscure. 

   Does exists some other documentation
   about these features? [...]

Sorry about that.  It's one of those "initially hard to get but once
you get it it's very simple" things and resource constraints and
external factors have never given time to really document things very
well.  The wiki and irc, however, have proven to be very effective
(albeit not ideal) documentation for serious-minded adopters (afaict).


   2) A typical scenario here is this: many developers writes code and,
   after a period of time, the code needs to be refactored. Tla of course
   has the "mv" and "move" commands, but can I move files (very
   important) and directories (not so important) across categories, in
   the multi tree scenario described before, preserving the history of
   changes?

   Thanks in advance for your support.

You'll get various good perspectives on that question.  Here's my
attempt:

Don't worry quite that much about preserving history in that
circumstance -- even under a system that did it absolutely perfectly
the cost of using that capability would normally exceed the value 
returned.

Arch is a little deceiving in that sense, at first glance:  it makes
such fantastic use of history that one just wants to keep that going
but, back in reality -- don't fetishize that: it's not that important,
usually.

If you have a complex development process that involves that kind of 
refactoring /and/ you want to use multiple categories -- the easiest
route is to throw some "sync points" into your process where everyone
has to catch up with the refactoring.  Failing that, you can do lots
of neat tricks by preserving the file's inventory tag across the category
rename but, imo, you need a really good reason to bother fussing with
such tricks.

-t