RFC: advisory "branch_status" flag in branch.conf

[Matthew D. Fuller]

On Thu, May 05, 2011 at 07:26:00AM +0200 I heard the voice of
vila, and lo! it spake thus:
> >>>>> Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer at samba.org> writes:
>     >> Is there any interest out there for standardizing on the option
>     >> "branch_status" as a way of marking the state of a branch?
> 
> I'm a bit hesitant to share the same option with foreigners ;)
> 
> It seems a bit risky to do that without a clear idea about everybody
> needs before hand so changes will occur and we'll run in
> compatibility hells.

I'm more than hesitant; I think it's a terrible idea.  Having an
option with a pile of possible values, used by various independent
tools that each assign their own implicit meanings to {some,all} of
the options is the sort of thing you come up with after intensive
large-scale research into the next step when breaking people on the
wheel goes out of fashion.

If we want an option for {include in all listings, include only when
explicitly asking for everything, deny existence of unless
specifically asked for by name}, let's do that, not make it an
implicit side effect of some other list of things...


-- 
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.