Re: [Monotone-devel] Why?

[Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker]

In message <address@hidden> on Tue, 31 May 2005 17:59:22 -0700, Nathaniel Smith 
<address@hidden> said:

njs> On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 05:12:14PM +0200, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker 
wrote:
njs> >      : ; ./monotone checkout --help
njs> >      Usage: monotone [OPTION...] command [ARGS...]
njs> >      [...]
njs> >      Options specific to 'monotone checkout':
njs> >        -b, --branch=STRING       select branch cert for operation
njs> >        -r, --revision=STRING     select revision id for operation
njs> >      
njs> >           checkout [DIRECTORY]
njs> >             check out revision from database into directory
njs> 
njs> This actually seems somewhat less clear to me.

I don't know if you've looked at what I did (I did push).  I've
expanded the help text a little bit, so it looks like this:

  : ; ./monotone checkout --help
  Usage: monotone [OPTION...] command [ARGS...]
  [...]
  Options specific to 'monotone checkout':
    -b, --branch=STRING       select branch cert for operation
    -r, --revision=STRING     select revision id for operation
  
       checkout [DIRECTORY]
         check out a revision from database into directory.
         If a revision is given, that's the one that will be checked out.
         Otherwise, it will be the head of the branch (given or implicit).
         If no directory is given, the branch name will be used as directory

njs> Oh, wait, there are some little generic-sounding things tucked up
njs> in the big blob of text that I don't read, because it's always
njs> the same... and seems like every command says "-b" and "-r"
njs> anyway, so my eyes have learned to automatically ignore those
njs> too...

I hope that with the slightly longer text, people will be curious
enough to raise their eyes a couple of lines and find the options that
are specific to this command.  The same goes for the banch name, BTW.

njs> I kind of like it for 'update' as well, since people are likely
njs> to have an expectation there that you _can't_ update to an
njs> arbitrary revision, and are again very likely to miss that tucked
njs> up into the option summary above...  Haven't thought much about
njs> the other commands.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  'monotone update', just like
that, will give me whatever is a reachable head today, if there is one
(i.e. no multiple heads).  That'a arbitrary enough to me.

I too welcome other's opinions.

Cheers,
Richard

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-- 
Richard Levitte                         address@hidden
                                        http://richard.levitte.org/

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including
 the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
                                                -- C.S. Lewis