[rfc] bzr-colo into core

[Matthew D. Fuller]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 06:48:36PM +1100 I heard the voice of
Martin Pool, and lo! it spake thus:
> 
> I think this is the logical next step to make bzr's ui more powerful
> and more friendly.

+9 on the concept.

I'm not so sanguine about the path of just bringing in the plugin more
or less as-is though; this is a fairly big fundamental change, and I
think it needs to be much more integrated, in terms of how we adjust
the commands working, and how we shift our component modelling.

Yuo may remember that quite some time ago I wrote up a conceptual
proposition at <http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/MatthewFuller/Fasces>
for how pieces could come together for it, and I still feel fairly
good about some of the attributes I posit as necessary; as a few
examples:

- We don't make this some sort of branch, but rather a separate entity
  containing branches (or even 'sticks' rather than branches, to
  smoothly handle having checkouts as components).

- A much more fundamental shuffle to conceiving of branches by name
  rather than location, as I maintain that trying to use shortcut
  name-like things that get DWIM'd into locations is just a long-term
  pain reservoir.  X-ref for instance Alexander's mail about the
  problems with having paths to branches inside a colo.

- Big shifts in command usage are going to be unpleasant.  Small
  shifts are unavoidable at the least and good at best (e.g., the
  reappropriation of 'clone'), but the primary command for pushing
  stuff should stay 'push', etc (both for historical, and for "why is
  this odd-seeming command name the allegedly 'normal' thing?"
  reasons).


I believe that these sort of things can be done without simultaneously
moving the earth out from under people who want to keep working in a
classic-bzr fashion; that's one of the key items behind my fascis
proposal.


-- 
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)   |  fullermd at over-yonder.net
Systems/Network Administrator |  http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
           On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.