[Monotone-devel] Re: renaming branches (was Re: Ideas and questions.)

[Peter Simons]

Graydon Hoare writes:

 > - sometimes you want to be able to globally rename a
 > branch. this is sort of possible-ish already, by just
 > making a new branch and telling everyone to stop using
 > the old one, then flushing the old one out of the db as
 > required.

How do I flush the old branch out of the database as of now?


 > but it's never likely to be globally possible because
 > people might just ignore you.

I think we all agree that renaming a branch globally is
pretty much impossible unless everybody plays along in a
coordinated manner.

In my humble opinion, the ability to rename a branch in the
_local_ database is what is missing at the moment. I've
never needed a global rename; I've needed a local rename
dozens of times though.


 > - sometimes you want "short names" like "main" or "dev"
 > for your branches, but those are really between you and
 > monotone. a UI thing.

I agree, that's a UI thing. Both aliases and smart command
line completion can help with that problem. An internal
alias database for Monotone sounds quite nice, but it's
nothing I have really _wanted_ in the past. Branch renaming
and deletion is much more important, IMHO.


 > - sometimes you have a need to isolate two branches from
 > one another even though they have the same name.

Well, I have never needed to do that, actually. I thought
a branch was a "merge obligation" in Monotone, and I am
quite comfortable with that "limitation". Having two
branches with the same name which are not the same branch
sounds more like a lot of confusion to me than anything
else. ;-)

Just my 0.02 Euros.

Peter