Re: Preventing mistakenly deleting branch tags

[Stephen Cameron]

--- Donald Sharp <sharpd@cisco.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 07:09:18AM -0700, Stephen Cameron wrote:
> > 
> > --- Donald Sharp <sharpd@cisco.com> wrote:
> > regarding my patch about deleting branch tags.
> > 
> > > This doesn't stop people from pulling the trigger.  It just makes
> > > it annoying and the user will definately figure it out.
> > > 
> > [...]
> > Yeah, my intent was only to help prevent accidental deletion of branch
tags.
> > If a misguided user is bent on deleting a branch tag, my patch wouldn't
stop
> > them.  Extending your analogy, my patch is like a safety switch on a gun.
> 
> Except it only stops one tiny little misbehaviour on the users part.
> Do you really want to add a new command line switch for every tag'ing
> issue you would like to restrict?
> 
[...]
> > 
> > Hmm, it occurs to me that "cvs tag -F" which can move a tag should probably
be
> > a bit wary of moving branch tags too.  I've had novice users in the past
commit
> 
> This makes my point for me.  are you going to add another command line 
> switch to the process to control this action?
> 
> It's better to define a certain class of commands that we don't
> want ordinary cvs users to do.
[...]

I think these are two independent goals.  I am saying it would be nice if guns
had a safety so you don't accidently shoot yourself in the foot.  I think you
are saying only certain people should have guns, so they can't shoot you or me
in the foot. :-)

Now, you may have some ideas about how my (probably unoriginal) idea for a
safety switch should be implemented, but I don't think it should be tied in
with the "gun-licensing", since even experienced users are subject to
accidents.

The "safety switch" seems pretty easy to implement.  The "gun-licensing" does
not.  Also, it's not clear that a user configurable gun-licensing scheme would
be practical _in most shops_ as a user who is given enough power to be useful
is also given enough power to wreak havoc.  Of course you should feel free to
hack away on it though.

[...]
-- steve


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