Re: [Arx-users] Ease of use

[Walter Landry]

Kevin Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> Walter Landry wrote:
> > Kevin Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I don't think it is quite as easy as darcs yet for small projects,
> > partly because you still have to think about archives.  I have thought
> > a little about making a darcs-like workflow, where the archive is
> > created within the directory.  That is more long-term.
> 
> Actually, the ArX approach has two advantages over the darcs way:
> 
> 1. ArX is more like CVS. New users coming to darcs all face an AHA! 
> moment at some point when they realize that a working directory IS a 
> repository. For many, that moment comes after days or weeks of use.
> 
> 2. ArX makes it easier to juggle multiple branches. I got frustrated 
> with darcs when I ended up with several related branches, randomly 
> scattered across my system, and I couldn't remember which was newer, 
> which was temporary junk, etc. Using darcs requires more discipline and 
> organization, which should /will be documented as darcs tips and best 
> practices.

This is the main reason that I have no intention of completely getting
rid of archives.  When things are simple, I think the darcs approach
is very intuitive and works well.  It can just get out of hand when
you have lots of branches.  You end up making your own repository
where projects go to die.

However, it is interesting to note that Bitkeeper uses the same
workflow as darcs, and it is also supposed to be easy to use.  This
might be because of the GUI, because, AIUI, Bitkeeper has enough
commands to make tla look suitable for small children.

> So for an incoming CVS user, I think ArX may even feel more comfortable 
> than darcs. It's at least in the same ballpark, which is great, since 
> everyone raves about darcs being easy. I haven't done a serious analysis 
> yet, but for common tasks I think the two are comparable.

Like I said, I think the only real difference is that you have to
think about archives.  Darcs has fewer commands (30 vs 44), and part
of that is because of archives.  Darcs makes you think about patches a
bit more, but not for simple stuff.  Darcs is also more interactive.

> Speaking of ease of use, have you considered using -m instead of -s to 
> specify a log message for commit? As a cvs and darcs user, I keep 
> wanting to use -m. What does "s" stand for, anyway?

"s" stands for Summary.  When printing logs with "log", the log
message will be in the Summary header.  It is also possible to have a
log message body if you write your own RFC-822'ish log file.

That said, I don't have strong feelings about "-s".  The only other
project that uses "-s" is tla.

Walter