Re: [Monotone-devel] A Two-Fold Proposal: On Formats And Front-Ends

[Marcel van der Boom]

On 4 okt 2005, at 13:21, Larry Hastings wrote:

<alot-of-good-things />

I tend to view at the 'problem' a bit more simplistic. I agree with  
the point on the different output formats and the, at least to me,  
strange division between "to automate or not to automate" commands.

During the writing of some front-end tools and other useful helpers,  
the list below would basically made my life a lot easier all my  
problems:

1. get rid of the "automate vs non-automate" distinction alltogether AND
2. define "standard output formats", dont really care what they are,  
fine if they are the same like now, BUT:
3. implement a --format switch which takes something like a printf()  
format string/file, where you can deviate from the standard output  
format. Having things like %author%, %date%, %rev%, %cert% or  
whatever in the format string, which get replaced with the avialable  
info. If you dont like the default output format, use the --format  
switch to make your own. There is a finite number of  "elements"  
which need to be defined, so the vocabulary of the %thingies% wouldnt  
be that bad.

And optionally:
4. Provide lua stuff to *define* the default format, but that sugar  
to me.
5. If the format of the --format switch could match roughly how the  
"lua-world" works, that would be great. Not only giving a coherent  
mental picture of the monotone interface, but creating synergy  
between what people learn step by step in the cmd-line traversing  
over to the lua rc files when it gets less than simple.

The split up, in the visible explicit way larry described, wouldnt  
get my vote. Having one monotone excutable is very comfortable during  
deployment, especially in loosely coupled open source groups like  
ours. "Download this and get started" is very valuable. Having to  
have a separate daemon to set up would not be very welcomed by me.

marcel


--
Marcel van der Boom
HS-Development BV               --   http://www.hsdev.com
So! webapplicatie framework  --   http://make-it-so.info

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