Scoping the UI changes for 2.0

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 09:14 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> Aaron Bentley <aaron at aaronbentley.com> writes:
> 
> > Karl Fogel wrote:
> > > So instead of this:
> > > 
> > >> - a commitment to having ONE stable format throughout, and ONE
> > >> development format EVER in 3.0,
> > > 
> > > How about this:
> > > 
> > >> - a commitment to backwards compatibility and isolating users from
> > >> the effects of format changes.
> > 
> > I find that a lot easier to swallow.
> 
> It sure *sounds* nicer. But is it any more feasible? The former has the
> significant advantage of being concrete, and having a technically
> obvious implementation.

We suffer a huge perception issue related to formats; the root of the
cause is in fact that people do need to know about them.

2.0 won't stop people needing to know about them, because *they are
already out there*.

So the 2.0->3.0 cycle is a buffer where we need to sort our shit out -
we've been wanting to do this for ages anyway, but deferred various
major aspects (like the rich root transition) for a number of reasons.

I think its a lot easier to say to users 'upgrading to 3.0 is a disk
change' and to be able to stop talking about formats, than to say 'when
we make changes it won't affect you anymore'.

That said, Karl's discussion of svn's isolation excludes the fairly
large [as a fraction of users I know] that have been bitten harshly by
svn's approach to the problem.

-Rob
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