[RFC] branch --bind

[Ian Clatworthy]

Robert Collins wrote:

>> * OTOH, bound branches are easy to explain
> 
> I dispute that this is a point of difference - they are precisely as
> easy to explain as a heavy checkout, because they are the same thing
> with the exception of *one* command.

The differences are far deeper than one command. See my other email and
http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/MatthewFuller/BoundBranches.

> Which provoked a long thread, and I don't see consensus here.

In term of people objecting to adding --bind to branch, I recall Al
Budden and yourself objecting. Anyone else? On deeper analysis:

* Al is after a nicer way of setting up a cbranch-style setup in
Explorer (which is semi-related but not blocked by this change).

* IIUIC, you object at the conceptual level because:
  - branch = 'start new line of development'
  - checkout = 'give me a local copy'

FWIW, I disagree that branch's purpose is that narrow. I think that
using branch to create a mirror - and pull to keep it up to date - is
fine. Lots of our documentation encourages that. Many of our users do that.

I recalled Jelmer, jam, poolie, Scott and a few others agreeing the
change was a good one. That seemed to be enough people saying "it's
useful to me" to proceed.

I'll wait a few more days in the hope of achieving broader consensus.
(It doesn't seem likely though.)

> So heres something that has been on my mind for a bit. bind is a special
> case of 'please behave specially with respect to <x> remote branch'. And
> further, its a single branch command. But we want to get better at
> working with groups of branches - and we've got nearly no evolution
> happening there.
> 
> So here is a strawman that describes a CLI for configuring remote branch
> relationships in a 'repo' (in the usual bzr sense of
> find-the-containing-repo otherwise use .)

Interesting ideas. Thanks for the brain dump.

> If we're going to fix this part of the UI (the whole 'how do I get setup
> properly' question that this is part of) we need to address the actual
> issue that drives the problem: bzr has /no workflow gear around
> collections of branches.

I agree with the need to handle collections of branches better. I think
it's largely orthogonal though (or ought to be) to improving bound
branches and checkouts.

Ian C.