Is this right?

[Vincent Ladeuil]

>>>>> "Russel" == Russel Winder <russel.winder at concertant.com> writes:

    Russel> Guillermo,
    Russel> On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 20:00 -0200, Guillermo Gonzalez wrote:
    >> Hi,
    >> 
    >> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 7:45 PM, Aaron Bentley <aaron at aaronbentley.com> wrote:
    >> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
    >> > Hash: SHA1
    >> >
    >> > Russel Winder wrote:
    >> >> Uuurrr... this used to work fine and now....
    >> >>
    >> >>
    >> >> Using saved parent location: bzr
    >> >> +ssh://russel@bazaar.launchpad.net/~guillo.gonzo/bzr-xmloutput/trunk/
    >> >> bzr: ERROR: Not a branch: "bzr
    >> >> +ssh://russel@bazaar.launchpad.net/~guillo.gonzo/bzr-xmloutput/trunk/".
    >> >
    >> > Apparently Guillermo Gonzalez has changed his shortname from
    >> > guillo.gonzo to verterok, which would break old urls.
    >> 
    >> Indeed,  Apolgize the inconvenience.

    Russel> Well this will certainly screw up

'screw' seems a bit excessive here, the branch is not updated so
it's as good as it was before the pull (merge, missing ?).

    Russel> everyone using a branch of this branch

And this is good. That branch has ceased to exist. You got a copy
the last time you pulled from it, that's the best you can hope in
a distributed world.

We can blame Guillermo, but what if, instead of changing his
name, he created another lp user ?

You get no notice that the branch you're pointing to is now a
dead one and will forever stay subscribed.

And what if you're subscribed to a branch that must be relocated
on another site because (put any reason here) ?

For any change outside of your control, you have to act.

    Russel> since there appears to have been no announcement
    Russel> anywhere of the change.

I don't think announcements are a way to solve that *kind* of
problem. 

In that specific case it could have helped you, yes, but in
general there is no link between a branch and its subscribers, so
there is now way to warn all the subscribers.

    >> Rusell, running: bzr pull --remember lp:bzr-xmloutput  should fix it.

    Russel> It does appear to have done.  But remember everyone
    Russel> has the bzr+ssh: protocol URL stored so another
    Russel> change will cause people further aggravation.

We could blame the way 'lp:' protocol works here as it chases the
pointer and gives back
bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/%7Everterok/bzr-xmloutput/trunk/
which indeed is another failure waiting to happen.

Or we could blame verterok for not putting his branch under
bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/~bzr-xmloutpu/bzr-xmloutput/trunk/
which should remain valid longer.

But in the end, branch URLs just change, that's a fact of life.

    Russel> I think failing to announce this sort of change

Even if we had the list of the branches based on this branch,
what can be done ? Part of these are obviously not reachable,
some may have cease to exist, that list should also include a way
to contact the branch owner, what about anonymous owners ?

Etc, etc.

    Russel> and assuming that everyone will divine that it has
    Russel> happened 

You got a BzrNotABranch error, which is the best bzr can do
without a crystal ball (it can't divine either).

    Russel> and will know exactly what to do, is not a way of
    Russel> progressing.

In that specific case, you can argue that lp could redirect the
old ID branches to the new ones (but that means keeping the old
ID in use) and in that case, depending on how lp implement it,
bzr may even warn you that a redirection has occurred... but
that's really a tiny fraction of a branch death possible causes.

    Russel> I should note that this is not the first time...

And certainly not the last. I could also mention having been
instructed to subscribe to a branch which was not updated as
regularly as the one I really wanted...

    Russel> Apologies for being grumpy on this 

This is understandable, I went into it a couple of times too.

    Russel> but it is these small things that get to be
    Russel> the most irritating.

This is certainly not a small thing but a social or
organizational problem, nothing bzr can address other than
providing the easiest way to take the change into account when
the new url is provided. And this is exactly what --remember
does.

But if you have any idea on how to handle the general problem
better, I'm surely interested.

        Vincent

P.S.: Nice bug summary shape here
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr-xmloutput :-)