marrying bundle and directive? (Re: [MERGE] Merge directive format 2, Bundle format 4)

[Ian Clatworthy]

Adeodato Simó wrote:

> Hm, this is probably coming late to the party, and I hope nobody gets
> offended (feel free to ignore me instead :-P). But since I sense this
> one of those "speak now or shut up forever" moments, I'll speak up.

Thanks for speaking up.

> I *personally* think that, from an UI point of view (and UI is
> important), there should be a single command, despite both being
> separate things inside bzrlib.

I tend to agree. At a minimum, having one command removes the need to
explain when to use bundle vs merge-directive, something I certainly
didn't get when I started using Bazaar.

> So, in my opinion, there would be a single command, preferably `bundle`,
> that would take care of all the possible use cases, always producing
> merge directives (almost always, anyway):
> 
>   1. `bzr bundle ../upstream.branch >../submit.diff`
> 
>     Keeps quite the same semantics and format as now (=> users won't be
>     surprised), and it's the canonical thing to do to send patches
>     upstream.

In the current UI, I feel that bundle has a lower barrier to adoption
than merge-directive mostly because merge-directive requires a source
URL while bundle doesn't.

Ian C.