Re: [Gnu-arch-users] changes: tree shows no revisions in version ?

[Andrei A. Voropaev]

On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 10:23:36AM -0600, Gustavo Córdova Avila wrote:
> Andrei A. Voropaev wrote:
> 
> >Well. It took me quite a few tries before I've figured this out. If
> >assigning different name to archive is so dangerous, then why is it
> >allowed? And if it is allowed, then why later usage of alternative name
> >leads to problems?
> >
> >Andrei
> >
> Well, for one thing, you might know just what you're doing,
> and tla is eminently flexible in that account, it lets you
> shoot yourself in the foot --IF you don't know what you're
> doing--.
[...]
> Me, I find tla's "do what you want, it's you're life" attitude
> refreshing, I absolutely hate when a tool starts applying
> artificial restrictions and treating me (it's user) as an
> ignoramus; we all start as such, but we learn, and having a
> restrictive tool takes away the delight of learning, because
> then your tools don't fit quite as nicely as before, so,
> IMO, tla "does the right thing".

Hm. Interesting interpretation. I always understood this princip
differently. Take any calculator. It is also a tool. This tool does not
forbid me to divide by zero. But it does not crash when I do it, so I
can continue to use it. In my situation, tla didn't forbid my collegue
to checkout a tree under wrong name. But after that it refused to work
with it, leaving all his changes in the air. That's an equivivalent of
crash. tla restricted him and me in our work.

What is so restricting in not allowing to checkout a tree that wouldn't
be usable anyway?

Wouldn't it sound better if my question was "Why tla doesn't allow a
checkout of my tree" and your answer: "Because you are doing the wrong
thing. You shouldn't checkout from wrong archive name. RTFM." :) And
that would be so good for us, because then we wouldn't have to waste our
time trying to figure how to save all the updates to the tree.

It's so pleasant to learn, when one discovers new and new features. And
it sucks, when one has to learn more and more gotchas.

All of the above was not said as a reproach to tla :) Just an
explanation why I think that this behaviour should be considered a bug
and not the feature :) And of course, no demands to fix it. After all
this is free tool :)

Andrei