Re: [Gnu-arch-users] version aliases

[Miles Bader]

On Mon, Apr 05, 2004 at 09:04:40AM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
> Not really.   Aliases would need a distinctive syntax -- perhaps a
> prefix character.
> 
>       tla get :latest-emacs

How come?  Existing arch names already have a distinctive syntax, so an alias
could be anything else (with the rule that they not intrude on the real
namespace).  It might possibly impact error handling -- a typo could
syntactically look like an alias -- but even this seems very minor, as only
valid aliases would be accepted, and it's very unlikely that anybody would
keep lots of aliases that are a small edit-distance from real names.

The existing patch-NN syntax would look like an alias in such a scheme, but
that's an unproblematic special case I think, and indeed, that feature might
even be able to use the alias mechanism if it were flexible enough (e.g.,
allowed `computational aliases', if only for internal tla use).

[Not that a single-character prefix is all that annoying, I'm just curious
why it would be _necessary_.]

Thanks,

-Miles
-- 
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`All the past could be forgiven.'   [NYT]