[MERGE] make 'push' default to parent branch

[Colin D Bennett]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:47:55 +0100
Daniel Watkins <daniel at daniel-watkins.co.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:11:32 -0600
> Scott Scriven <bzr at toykeeper.net> wrote:
> > * Aaron Bentley <aaron at aaronbentley.com> wrote:
> > > > at the expense of making things a bit harder for new users...
> > > 
> > > Quite the opposite.  An experienced developer will know *why* bzr
> > > is complaining that http doesn't support mkdir.  A new user will
> > > not. A new user *ought* to understand "bzr: ERROR: No push
> > > location known or specified."
> > 
> > Comparing one error against the other misses an important point.  
> > The current behavior is guaranteed to fail, but the default URL 
> > approach will often just work.
> The other side of the argument is that:
> "The current behaviour is guaranteed to fail before it can cause any
> damage, but the default URL approach will sometimes just break
> things."

I agree:  accidentally pushing to an upstream branch could be bad.
Don't the 'push/pull' operations potentially alter the target branch
history?  (As opposed to simply adding new revisions.)

If they can modify the remote branch's history, I think the user should
have to explicitly state where to push to.

The situation is different for a pull, since obviously you normally are
in a shell with a current working directory in the target branch, or you
specify the target with '-d target'.  Therefore, the target of
modifications due to a pull is clear to anyone executing a pull command.

Regards,
Colin