Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: darcs vs tla

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Fri, 2004-11-19 at 08:47, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >     This is not an example of tla being easier to use.  To the contrary,
> >     it's an example of darcs being easier to use, in that there's only
> >     one way to relocate a file in any given tree.
> 
> [ I don't care about `tla-vs-darcs' here as much as `explicit-vs-tagline'. ]
> 
> With both taglines and explicit, there is one way which alway works, namely
> "tla mv".  Additionally, with taglines just `mv' works as well in many/most
> cases (i.e. as long as it's applied to a directory or to a file that
> contains a tagline).  Admittedly, it's not 100% so you can't just rely on
> it, but it's occasionally handy.

I'd really like to know what that "occasionally handy" example is. I
really don't think we should be emphasizing "> 1 way to do it". I guess
if you're a perl coder though, that would seem natural... for the rest
of us, perl would kind of "rest our case" though, I'd say :)

> Given that anything you can do with explicit you can also do just as easily
> with taglines (and I firmly believe this is the case) the only line of
> argument against taglines has to be something along the lines of "taglines
> confuse users because it gives them false expectations", or "taglines are too
> subtle, it's too difficult for average users to know when to use them and
> when not", or "taglines tend to break when you a change in a file requires
> the tagline to be changed", ...

Perhaps a good argument for "tla cp" - really, when you use an SCM, you
need to use the SCM. How much easier is it to remember to do everything
with tla, than to have to learn which commands are tla and which Unix?

OK, I've stated my point... twice now :)

cheers
zen