Will re-basing support be added into Bazaar core ?

[Ben Finney]

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

> On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 12:14 +1000, Andrew Cowie wrote:
> > On Sat, 2009-04-18 at 13:16 +1200, Talden wrote: 
> > > Being in core it would
> > > be likely to be maintained and tested more aggressively
> > 
> > The core hackers mostly seem to advocate that rebasing is evil.
> 
> I have never understood why "Rebasing is Evil".

I can't speak for the Bazaar developers. For my part, a non-exhaustive
list would be:

* Rebase means losing information unnecessarily
  <URL:http://blog.experimentalworks.net/2009/03/merge-vs-rebase-a-deep-dive-into-the-mysteries-of-revision-control/>

* Rebase results in mis-representation of the history of a branch.

  If you want to avoid viewing some revisions, that speaks to the need
  to filter those when viewing, not to prevent anyone else from viewing
  them.

  If you decide post facto that you *do* want to prevent anyone else
  from viewing some information in the branch, you're fighting against
  the nature of a DVCS and, indeed, the internet. You deserve to lose
  that struggle.

* Linus Torvalds points out the problem that rebase obliterates the
  distinction between a working tree state that has been tested and one
  that hasn't <URL:http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/638862>.

> Surely it is just another tool in the armoury. Used judiciously it is
> a valuable tool. Using it badly or inappropriately is the problem.

Tools that involve great danger and certain information loss, to achieve
what could be done without that, are to be deprecated IMO.

> Personally I find it incredibly useful for long-term feature branches
> where it is important to track the mainline branch and have the
> ability to create a conflict free merge/patch.

I find Bazaar's “loom” feature useful for that, without involving any
information-loss or never-use-this-if-you-actually-share-the-branch
caveats.

-- 
 \        “Courteous and efficient self-service.” —Café sign, southern |
  `\                                                            France |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney
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