Terminology for referring to branches during merges and conflicts (was: [RFC] How to better assist users in resolving conflicts)

[Vincent Ladeuil]

>>>>> "Ben" == Ben Finney <ben+bazaar at benfinney.id.au> writes:

    Ben> Ben Finney <ben+bazaar at benfinney.id.au> writes:
    >> Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> writes:
    >> 
    >> > 2010/1/13 Vincent Ladeuil <v.ladeuil+lp at free.fr>:
    >> > > I switch from this/other to mine/theirs as I thought it made them
    >> > > more "personal". When I merge a branch into my current working
    >> > > tree, I clearly know which is "mine" and from there I deduce what
    >> > > is "theirs" without thinking about *who* is theirs :)
    >> >
    >> > ok
    >> 
    >> OTOH, the “mine”/“theirs” terminology is needlessly distracting to me.
    >> Often there is no “mine”/“theirs” distinction; they're both mine, or
    >> they're both someone else's. So the terms aren't helpful in numerous
    >> cases, and I think it should be deprecated.

Note that it's used in 'bzr missing' too.

    Ben> I forgot the case where the terminology is pathological:
    Ben> I often am dealing with a merge where “this” ==
    Ben> “theirs”, and “other” == “mine”.  Yet the terms used by
    Ben> Bazaar are opposite to that. 

If conflicts are generated you mentally translate '.THIS' suffix
to 'theirs' and .OTHER to 'mine'.

Whereas when you merge other people work into yours you know that
'.THIS' is 'mine' and '.OTHER' is 'theirs'.

Whatever terms we use you map them mentally anyway.

    Ben> That's an even stronger argument for deprecating
    Ben> “mine”/“theirs”, IMO.

No strong feeling to keep mine here :)

Another reason to use this/other is that we use '.THIS' and
'.OTHER' suffixes (as used above in the discussion :)

Then there is keep/take or just take or even nothing: 

1) --keep-this/--take-other,
2) --take-this/--take-other
3) --this, --other

3 is a bit extreme if we want to implement other actions for text
conflicts like: --prefer-this/--prefer-other/--take-both.

          Vincent