Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: DARCS

[Damien Elmes]

Mirian Crzig Lennox <address@hidden> writes:

> Why "gah?"  The alternative is to clutter the user's source tree with
> magical names like "{arch}", ",,what-changed.foo" and ++log.bar",
> requiring added complexity to tell them apart from actual source.
> Directories are the canonical way to partition namespace in Unix, so
> we may as well use them.  Let the kernel do our work for us rather
> than requiring every utility know how to recognise junk paths from
> source.
>
> This is also the rationale behind the common practice of keeping build
> directories separate from one's source trees.

The ,,what-changed stuff no longer appears by default in recent tla
releases. The log filename could probably be shortened a bit so it
doesn't mess up the directory listing wrapping, but it's not a huge
problem. {arch} is a simple grep -v away if it's a bother.

I remember being quite turned off by all the funnily named files when
I first started arch. But really I couldn't care anymore - I know for
one that having to do something like "cd project/actual-tree" where
project/ contained {arch} etc would be far more of a pain than having
the files sitting inside the same tree. Maybe there's some scope for
improvements here, but it's certainly not the priority I once
considered it. It can be convenient to have those "arch droppings" in
easy view, and the ,, files are easy to remove.

A tool like "cvs export" would probably a good thing though.

Cheers,
-- 
Damien Elmes