Feedback from evaluation in a corporate environment

[Paul Moore]

2010/1/11 Ian Clatworthy <ian.clatworthy at canonical.com>:
> I've also made some initial steps inside Bazaar Explorer to simplify
> things so that well-performing setups happen *by default*. For example:
>
> 1. The Initialize dialog is "model based" so that users say how they
>   want to work (feature branches, shared tree, plain branch) and it
>   builds the right layout on disk for you. The default model -
>   feature branches - is an efficient one.
>
> 2. The branch dialog checks that the destination is inside a shared
>   repository. If not, it suggests the user creates one and guides
>   them through the process of doing so.
>
> If we want to do similar things on the cli level, it's not hard
> technically, just socially (i.e. getting agreement!). :-)

I have never used Bazaar Explorer (and don't expect to, I'm a
command-line type) but it seems to me that your "models" don't match
how I think of things.

- Starting a new project
- Putting an existing directory under version control
- Grabbing a copy of project X (Python, Emacs, ...) to do some hacking

There's no thought of "feature branches", "shared tree", or "plain
branch" in that. And I'm not sure that expecting me to read up on
workflow descriptions so that I can understand my choices is really
sensible.

Remember - Subversion users just do "svn co http://,,,,, xxx" and go.
(Setting up a new repository, or putting a directory under VC, is more
of a pain, but that's CVCS for you :-)). Mercurial users just do "hg
clone http://.... xxx" or "hg init; hg add *" and go. (I'm not sure
about git). That's the level of simplicity you're competing with.

And I know that I can use commands that are just as simple in Bazaar.
The problem is that if I do, I hit issues down the line and get told
"well, you shouldn't have done that".

Sometimes more choices is simply bad.

Paul.