Feedback from evaluation in a corporate environment

[Andrew Cowie]

On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 17:02 +1100, Martin Pool wrote:

> More generally, yes, it's possible to use most tools in a way that
> makes them slow, and we have more to do to make the obvious way always
> the best way.  Read the manual, or ask, or just try it.  It's not hard
> to use bzr in a way that makes it fast and easy.

Yes, but it's astonishingly easy to use bzr in a way that makes it slow
and confusing.

Indeed, if the first thing you do is:

$ bzr init

our poor user is probably already on the wrong track

[because you meet `bzr init` before you meet the "more advanced" concept
of Shared Repositories which are a) utterly necessary if you want bzr to
be fast after you've got the first branch in, and b) hard to use easily.
So well done at making bzr lovely and supportive of different layouts,
and oops for allowing new users to easily shoot themselves in the foot
unless we try REALLY hard to convince them not to. And this is just one
example we all know and treasure¹]

I get that bzr is powerful, and with power comes complexity. I value
that power, and continue to advocate Bazaar as the best choice in
DVCSen. I just think (and have for a while) that Bazaar widely missed
its proclaimed target of "a tool that is easy to use and hard to screw
up with", and that without a serious culling of "features" down to a
feature set that is somewhat siloed and bullet proof, we won't actually
achieve it. The thread titled "branch --bind" is illustrative; every
time someone suggests "just get rid of an entire confusing feature class
[heavyweight checkouts, say]" everyone agrees, and then goes on to
"clarify" what that means to them ... by nicely leaving in the thing to
be culled.

Users. Jeesh. We would all be better without them, really. :)

AfC
Sydney

¹ As I write this I'm thinking about the end-user apps I'm working on,
and wailing with despair at how high the bar to make a program robust
even for astute people whom you're hand holding. God help me the first
time any of you try my code. I'm so dead.

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