Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: mtn:// sync

[Markus Schiltknecht]

Hi,

Timothy Brownawell wrote:
> It will be in addition to the current syntax, so what works now will
> still work.

Okay, that's fine.

> Yes, '&' and especially '!' aren't good characters for shells. I think
> I'll use the suggestions of '/' and '-' instead (still in the query
> string instead of the path, so it'll work with file:// and ssh:// sync).

Yeah, that looks better for shells. However, I'm wondering somewhat how 
you want to find the end of the URL and beginning of include/exclude 
patterns.

So, am I right in assuming we are talking about such URLs like these:

 * mtn://monotone.ca/net.venge.motonone*
 * mtn://monotone.ca/net.venge.motonone*-net.venge.monotone.experiment
 * file:/tmp/test.db/org.foo*/org.bar*-org.foo.unwanted/org.bar.unwanted


Do we still need the asterisk? Quite a while ago, Lapo was complaining, 
that net.venge.monotone* would not only mean branches net.venge.monotone 
and net.venge.monotone.*, but also net.veneg.monotone-foo. That's a 
valid concern, IMO.

Now, I know we didn't ever hardcode the dot as a branch name separator 
(IIRC). However, most people *are* using dot-separated branch names. And 
for policy branches - possibly also for nuskool - we should probably 
switch to enforce such a hierarchical branch naming anyway.

So, I'm proposing to get rid of the asterisk entirely, making 
"net.venge.monotone" mean: that branch and "net.venge.monotone.*" (but 
not "net.venge.monotone-foo". I'm assuming that's what you want most of 
the time anyway. If you really want to sync only "net.venge.monotone" 
and none of it's children, you'd have to explicitly exclude them. So it 
would look more like:

 * mtn://monotone.ca/net.venge.motonone

Or for nvm only, excluding child branches:

 * mtn://monotone.ca/net.venge.motonone-net.venge.monotone.*


As we need to change branch naming policies (prohibit use of '-' and 
'/') it seems like it's a good time for rethinking branch naming policies.

Regarding the general direction of stuffing include/exclude patterns 
into the URL: most other DVCSen feature a single URL per branch - and 
people are getting used to that. Supporting such per-branch URLs from 
monotone is thus a good thing, IMO. However, the URL needs to look 
similarly sane.

Just my $0.02.

Markus