Forging a replacement blade (was: CVS "just works?")

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Ben Finney writes:

 > You seem to be saying Bazaar plug-ins are not made by Bazaar users. Is
 > that right?

Of course not.  I'm saying that working with git requires two things:
a modicum of shell scripting and a willingness to read lots of git man
pages.  Writing Bazaar plugins requires a minimum of Python
programming skills, and for DAG manipulations a willingness to dive
into a complex API, and a complex and (up until a few years ago, and
the reputation remains) ever-changing internal format.  (Yes, git
changed to packs, and added the possibility of including commits ==
submodules as well as filesystem objects in trees, but the pack API is
the same for VCS operations, and commits in trees can be ignored for
the most part.)

Bottom line: The barrier to entry for git is way lower if one wants to
do things like reparent a branch, which can probably be implemented in
about 10 lines of shell script.  If you don't want to, no skin off my
nose, that's fine.  But sometimes I want to do things like that.

 > You've lost me with the “replacement blade” analogy. What is the
 > comparable task being attempted by the user? What does Bazaar require,
 > what does Git require?

DAG manipulations such as reparenting or rebasing.  I know the very
idea makes you feel ill, but some of us have no qualms as long as it's
kept in the privacy of one's own HDD and not performed in public.