Tracking filesystem entries as first-class VCS citizens (was: Bazaar still below the radar when evaluating VCS tools)

[Ben Finney]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

> Mercurial and git (especially git) take the point of view that they
> are tracking content, and a "file" is a way to associate a name with
> content, and not much more than that. Bazaar considers that a file is
> an abstract type which has a "name" attribute and a "content"
> attribute.

Bazaar is tracking more than just the name, but is also tracking other
attributes of the filesystem entry. Ones I know of include the
executable permission and the entry type (directory, normal file,
symbolic link, etc.).

These are important data about filesystem entries, that I want
reconstructed when applying changes from the VCS to the working tree.

AFAICT, that means Git and Mercurial (by the above description) don't
track some important information about files that Bazaar does. In other
words, I don't agree with Git or Mercurial that “a file is a way to
associate a name with content”, since there are other things a file is
for.

What am I missing?

-- 
 \        “The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the |
  `\       hijacking of morality by religion.” —Arthur C. Clarke, 1991 |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney