Re: [Monotone-devel] A question about tags

[Jack Lloyd]

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 08:54:55AM +1100, Daniel Carosone wrote:

> Yes, it is, coupled with the recommendation/expectation that tag names
> are usually more descriptive and at least a little less likely to
> collide.  Eg, 'monotone-0.39' rather than '0.39'. 

Recommendation/expectation? Nothing in the manual recommends this
style that I can see, nor explains what the visible scope of the tag
is. I've been using Monotone daily for over a year and just found
about this property, entirely by accident. I was completely
surprised. :(

> In some ways, it's a little of both.  Tags are just certs, and it's
> been left open to the user to combine certs and find usage patterns
> that make sense, whether the cert name is 'tag', 'branch', or
> something else.  This freeform combination is certainly considered the
> Right Thing, the specific implications for "tagging" behaviour
> vs. expectations from other systems are currently a mix of
> implementation artifact and learning the "monotone way".

Hrm. I agree that allowing free form combinations is sometimes good,
but I think it is also sometimes bad. When the combination can occur
accidentally, and cause negative effects, not good IMO.

> Tags don't have to be unique, and maybe someone will find a way to use
> that property sensibly.  Think about tags in the context of a blog
> rather than 'tagging releases'; someone might tag revisions with
> 'bug', 'fix' and/or other annotations that describe something about
> the nature of the change.
> However, there is talk that maybe what we currently do is not such a
> good fit for what people expect an annotation called 'tag' to be.

Or what the selector syntax assumes: t:<blah> is really quite useless
unless <blah> is unique.

> Certainly, the annotation above could be done with another cert name,
> though less conveniently because 'tag' comes with a nice t: selector
> syntax.

But you can add new syntax with expand_selector, right? So that part
of it seems relatively low cost.

-Jack