[Gnu-arch-users] Re: [BUG] feature plan -- downstream branches

[Stefan Monnier]

> Shell comment screw.  E.g.:
>       % tla revisions -s tla--devo#help-messages--1.3
> would mean, to some shells:
>       % tla revisions -s tla--devo
> So, ick.

Which shell would that be?
POSIX says that # starts a comment but only at the beginning of a "word"
(i.e. after a space, newline, semi-colon, ampersand, pipe, etc...).

> People who have followed me on this list as I piss and moan about 
> shells that take over new meta-characters (I'm not looking at any but
> the initials Z. S. H. come to mind as a suitable example) may be
> starting to realize why I object to shells taking over characters that
> would otherwise be just swell to use in filenames.

I use ZSH but I don't think we should cater so much to it.  Quoting is
an acceptable cost for the benefit of using a really perversely extended
glob mechanism.

Of course, I'd also argue that we should use / rather than : or #.
I'd even argue we should use / instead of -- for the other separators and
remove the special status of the version field (i.e. its total ordering).


        Stefan