Proper tracking of file-level operations: rename, directories, merges

[John Yates]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> No, you can say "bzr mv --after foo bar", to correct that mistake
> after the fact.

It is not that I occasionally forget to use "bzr mv" in lieu of simple mv. 
 No, I philosophically do not believe this is the proper user experience. 
It reveals a fundamentally command-line-centric design in which users are 
expected to keep in mind at all time that they are using a version control 
system and therefore to modify their behavior appropriately.  From that 
perspective "bzr mv --after" is an even more egregious UI mistake.

"bzr mv" and "bzr mv --after" work only if one performs one's own renames 
at the command-line.  Use an IDE or similar tool and bzr gets reduced to 
inferring renames.  So whether one's version control tool can be 
encouraged to infer renames prior to commit and to actually record those 
renames or instead simply infers them after the fact (a la git) seems a 
difference without a distinction.

Don't get me wrong.  I am a bzr fan and booster.  I simply have never 
accepted that the explicit recording of renames is an important virtue. 
More importantly it has lead to a more complex semantic model (named 
containers with contents) compared to git (named blobs).

/john




From:   Eli Zaretskii <eliz at gnu.org>
To:     John Yates/Marlborough/IBM at IBMUS
Cc:     ben+bazaar at benfinney.id.au, bazaar at lists.canonical.com, 
bazaar-bounces at lists.canonical.com
Date:   10/24/2011 09:35 AM
Subject:        Re: Proper tracking of file-level operations: rename, 
directories,    merges



> From: John Yates <john.yates at us.ibm.com>
> Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:20:40 -0400
> Cc: bazaar at lists.canonical.com, bazaar-bounces at lists.canonical.com
> 
> Bzr only knows that I did a rename if I issue "bzr mv foo bar".  If I 
have 
> failed to teach my fingers to type those extra 4 keys and ask bzr to 
> reconstruct my renames after the fact then I am in exactly the same boat 

> as hg.