Re: [Monotone-devel] beginner questions

[Jon Bright]

Adam Logghe wrote:

> While sha-1 hashes may look a bit intimidating, in actually using them
> in their short form I don't mind them a bit. I would see the addition of
> "fake" version numbers to be a nuisance and likely to me much more
> confusing when it counted (when you are trying to work out conflicts in
> tree states).

I'm not sure it would be an improvement, but "real" version numbers 
could also be generated.  You'd graydon.1.1, graydon.1.2, graydon.1.3, 
adam.1.1, and joel.1.1.  These could remain consistent and be unique - 
but I'm not at all sure that this helps understandability or eases the 
average user experience.

If it were up to me, I'd leave the version numbers thing alone for the 
moment - even if a real or fake system of version numbering were 
implemented in the future, it's clear that the backend would be sticking 
with SHA hashes.  As such, it has no infrastructure implications and 
isn't something that needs changing as soon as possible.  This being the 
case, I think there's a strong argument for not changing it now, waiting 
until Monotone's matured a bit and then seeing what the user experience 
is for certain common operations and whether that experience could be 
improved via the use of an extra layer of version numbers, or anything 
else.  Any other approach is probably premature optimisation.

--
Jon Bright
Silicon Circus Ltd.
http://www.siliconcircus.com