The term "branch" is misleading

[John A Meinel]

Kevin Smith wrote:
> John Yates wrote:
>>
>> 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.
> 
> I hit this conceptual speedbump when learning darcs. In that case, the
> refrain that made it easy was "working directory equals branch equals
> repository". Ohhhh. Strange, but straightforward once you think of it
> that way.
> 
> For bzr, it won't be that simple when there are true multi-branch repos,
> some of which won't have working directories. One way to justify the use
>  of "branch" would be to argue that everything is a branch of the empty
> branch, which leads to the fun idea that all projects are related to
> each other. (Insert religious note about unity here).
> 
> I think "line of development" is accurate and descriptive, but too long.
> As you point out, shortening that to "line" causes confusion with lines
> of code. I guess "lineage" could work. Other words from a thesaurus:
> ancestry, train, progression, chain.

I believe the other small problem with "line of development" is that it
is Trademark bitkeeper.
I'm not positive to that effect. But I have seen it brought up in the past.

> 
> In the end, however, "branch" is used by all(?) the other decentralized
> (distributed) SCM tools. Consistent terminology between tools is a good
> thing, such as "repo" in place of "archive". Unless we find a perfect
> word that other projects would also be willing to adopt, I think
> "branch" is the best choice.
> 
> It's just important to make the documentation as clear as possible.
> 
> Kevin
> 

Well, both having clear documentation, and making sure that we
standardize on terms. I believe James Blackwell put together a glossary
here:
http://bazaar.canonical.com/BzrGlossary

It isn't necessarily complete, but I think it is a good start to help
keep us all talking the same terms.

John
=:->



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