class 'intent' documentation

[John Yates]

Thursday, December 22, 2005 11:19 PM Robert Collins wrote:

> I've started some documentation about the key classes in bzrlib at
> http://bazaar.canonical.com/Classes.

The Classes/Branch page opens with this description

  A Branch is a key user concept - its a single line of history
  that one or more people have been committing to. A single CVS
  modules' MAIN is a branch, as is 'trunk/module' in svn.

This crystallized for me my vague discomfort with the term "branch".
To me branch suggests development that is subordinate to some trunk,
a flavor of fork.  It is a term that focuses on the relationship
of some work to other work.  The misleading connotations are
especially jarring when starting a new project or when taking
about the principal branch in a centralized development model.

While this may often (even very often) be an interesting attribute
of a bzr branch it is not its essence.  That essence is suggested
in Robert's definition.  A branch is a line of history or evolution.

Would it be too late to seek more felicitous terminology?  I am not
sure that I have an ideal candidate.  I do like "line", similar to a
cell line.  It resonates with the term "mainline".  Is the potential
for confusion when we are writing lines of code too great?

/john