Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork

[James Blackwell]

Miles Bader:
> On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 07:09:32PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
>> For the sake of argument, lets assume your point is true. In fact, I'll
>> go you one step better and assume for the purpose of this argument that
>> prefix is *better*. We still loose, because the perception is there.
>
> This is not clear.  I'd guess that a majority of people actually fall into
> two camps: those who have never heard of sexps (and thus have no existing
> prejudice against them), and those who both know of and can deal with them
> (after all it's hardly the case that what Tom is doing is from the esoteric
> fringe, it comes from a long and well respected tradition in CS).

Three groups. Those that like them, those that hate them, and those
that don't know them 

My argument isn't based on whether or not prefix is the right way to go
(though I do have my opinions on that). My argument is that many (if not
most) users won't bother with screwing with tla long enough to define an
appropriate opinion.

We already ask our users to learn a lot of stuff before they use arch:
The concept of changesets, the idea of never deleting history*, the idea
of categorizing their files into four categories**. We even give a
healthy try at convincing our users to build a proper build system.

Leaving asside the argument of whether or not prefix is right, I think
we're already throwing too many concepts at the user. We should save
this particular piece of strategy for some other battle.


*  This is a particularly nasty pill for users to swallow. Users, ever
   the pragmatic bunch that they are, don't care what a revision control
   system _is supposed to do_. They _care more about what they want_ to
   do, which in this case is to retroactively abort history. Though its
   an uphill battle, I think this is one of the right battles for us 
   to hold with the user.

** This one doesn't bother experienced users, but novices are
   consistantly confused. As such, I think the docs should be rewritten
   to take the novices through the concept in small baby steps.



-- 
James Blackwell          Try something fun: For the next 24 hours, give
Smile more!              each person you meet a compliment!

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