Re: [Monotone-devel] branch naming conventions

[Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker]

In message <address@hidden> on Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:14:21 +0100, Zbynek Winkler 
<address@hidden> said:

zwin> When everything has hash-based unique id why should branches be any 
zwin> different? Every database would maintain mapping between the unique ids 
zwin> and some human readable form (which could be anything - globaly unique 
zwin> or not). That would allow easy (local) renaming of branches while not 
zwin> forcing a naming convention.
zwin> 
zwin> Everything could stay the same only where now the branch name is would 
zwin> be the guid. Should the user want to use the guid, he/she could. But a 
zwin> database-local mapping could be created to assign names to the branches 
zwin> (not versioned). The ui code would map the names to the guids and back.
zwin> 
zwin> What do you think?

Well, I think branch names are a little bit more up front, so to say.
For example, listing branches is a good way to know what's going on,
and their names contains information on what the branches are about.
I would find it really hard to navigate between branches that are all
called something like 66af8ce762bcf77.  And having local-only names
for the branches really doesn't help communication between people.
While you'd have your own pet name for a specific branch, people would
still have to communicate those IDs to each other, and the recipient
would then have to check if he has a local name for it and which it
is.

Cheers,
Richard

-- 
Richard Levitte                         address@hidden
                                        http://richard.levitte.org/

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including
 the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
                                                -- C.S. Lewis