[MERGE] make 'push' default to parent branch

[Matthew D. Fuller]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 12:00:37PM -0500 I heard the voice of
John Arbash Meinel, and lo! it spake thus:
> 
> *I'm* not a fan of 'bzr commit --local'.

I agree.  And for the same reason that the "bound branch" terminology
should die in a hole somewhere[0]; it confuses an otherwise simple
issue.

commit --local is absolutely a good and useful thing, and something we
should keep around.  But it's not something we should run around
trumpetting, and it's *SURE* as heck not something that should be "and
then you can even"'d when describing using checkouts to somebody who
doesn't know bzr.  Really.  I know it's cool.  But just shut up about
it.

When you're using a checkout, you are, on that branch, working in a
centralized-ish fashion.  When you have a total independant branch,
you're working in a distributed fashion.  But the moment you commit
--local, you're working in a distributed fashion, in a setup that's
built around a centralized mindset.  If you do that without a good
understanding of using bzr in both ways, AND the particular behaviors
(logical and consistent though they may be) in that specific twisted
case, you're setting up a world of hurt.

If somebody doesn't already know they want it, and why they want it,
throwing it at them is not helpful.  Rather the opposite, really.


> With a locally committed heavy checkout, you also have problems
> during 'bzr update', because you potentially can update the working
> tree 2 times.  (Bring the tree to the tip of the local branch,

Well, that specific case IS a bug IMAO, not the "surprising and
gotchaish, but expected, consistent, and intended" issues that you
/will/ wind up with even in a bugfree implementation.



[0] I was personally a bit unhappy to see it resurfacing in the
    [needed, to be sure] overhaul of the 'reconfigure' help.


-- 
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)   |  fullermd at over-yonder.net
Systems/Network Administrator |  http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
           On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.