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

[Gustavo Córdova Avila]

Andrei A. Voropaev wrote:

> 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
Probably we're both right, or wrong :-)

Surely this is a bug, as it was previously commented, but also it
stands that tla gives you (me, him, them) enough rope to hang
ourselves with, and that's exactly what I like about it.

You're are very much correct about the checking-out an archive
and then not being able to store your changes; the good thing
is that you can re-checkout under another directory and do:

   diff -ru -x {arch} -x .arch-ids dir1 dir2 > changes.diff

so not all is lost.

Anyhow...  good luck with this; and now we know why not to
register an archive under a fake name :-)

-gustavo