Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:14:43 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <200411112014.iABKEhS2098991@xl2.seyza.com>
From: Thomas Lord <lord@emf.net>
To: dustin@spy.net
In-reply-to: <0D060DE3-341C-11D9-9D7F-000393CFE6B8@spy.net> (message from
	Dustin Sallings on Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:58:26 -0800)
Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: darcs vs tla
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	<0D060DE3-341C-11D9-9D7F-000393CFE6B8@spy.net>
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    > From: Dustin Sallings <dustin@spy.net>

    > 	There was a comment earlier about how you have to understand
    > darcs' concepts of patch theory to use it properly, but it seems
    > to me that arch requires way more understanding than darcs does
    > for normal use.

That's probably true but only because it let's you do more, too.

It's easier to use the kind of blunted scissors they give 
small children than to use a table-saw, too, but when it 
comes time to build a shelf.....

That said, the key to simplifying arch for many users isn't to reduce
arch's capabilities but, imo, to add higher-level tools which are
process-specific.  If your process only ever calls for one or three
kinds of merging, then add commands that optimize the interface to
that kind of merging.    There are different processes one might 
want, so no /single/ set of higher-level commands will cover all
cases, but within any one process, it's not that hard to make life
easier for users.    (I have some software coming up for
proof-of-concept release, in this regard --- a wrapper adding
high-level commands that implement the process used by the arch
project itself.)

What I still have not seen (and pretty much don't expect to) is any
indication that the merge operators in Darcs are a priority demand for
the kinds of processes people actually have reason to want to build.

-t


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