[MERGE] Rule-based preferences (EOL part 1 of 3)

[James Henstridge]

2008/5/19 Robert Collins <robertc at robertcollins.net>:
> On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 18:20 +1000, Martin Pool wrote:
>>
>> More importantly - this seems like the first mention of having rules
>> inside the branch/ directory (unless I just missed a previous thread?)
>> and since it's quite substantial you should call it out more in your
>> review.
>>
>> I don't think putting a rules file in there is a good idea; in general
>> everything in there should be determined solely by the branch format.
>> Adding a new one would require a branch format bump, and also code to
>> move them around, merge them, diff them, etc.  I think it would be
>> much more appropriate to put it in the working tree as .bzrrules.
>> (I'm happy to explain more about why this is so either in mail or
>> elsewhere if you want but won't flog it for now.)
>
> I am very shy of putting control files in the users tree; we've had bad
> experiences consistently in every VCS I have used or cut code for;
> please do explain more about why you feel they should be in the tree.
>
> (Yes, putting them in the branch object means we need to think about the
> impact carefully - but we need to do so regardless of where we put them)

One reason to keep it out of .bzr/ is if users are intended to edit
the file directly.  We don't have any other files in there that users
are expected to change directly, and it'd be good to keep it that way.

James.