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Re: r21207 (Renaming --no-svndiff1 to --pre-1.4-compatible)

From: David James <djames_at_collab.net>
Date: 2006-08-26 18:59:53 CEST

On 8/26/06, Max Bowsher <maxb1@ukf.net> wrote:
> David James wrote:
> > On 8/23/06, Daniel Berlin <dberlin@spork.dreamhost.com> wrote:
> >> IMHO, A reasonable compromise position in this case would have been to
> >> just make the flag work with *both* names, and in the help text, note
> >> that one is just an alias for the other..
> >
> > +1. If the help text states that --no-svndiff1 is an alias for
> > --pre-1.4-compatible, it'll be clear that the two concepts are one and
> > the same. This solution makes the effect of the flag clear (i.e. it
> > makes your repository compatible with Subversion 1.3 and earlier by
> > disabling svndiff1). Obviously a flag which disables svndiff1 will not
> > automatically make BDB 4.4 and/or FSFS compatible with Subversion 1.0.
>
> I still don't like the idea of unnecessarily exposing the name 'svndiff'
> in the UI at all. A regular user-administrator of Subversion should not
> ever need to encounter the names of internal algorithms used. It is
> another case of leakage of internal concepts out to the user, which we
> already suffer from in our error messages, and which contributes to
> Subversion being daunting to the less highly technical audience.

I still think it would be nice to state in the help text for the
--pre-1.4-compatible flag that the effect of the flag is to disable
svndiff1. As Brane pointed out, users might latch onto this flag and
think it is a complete solution to all of their compatibility problems
between releases: that's not true, because it only disables svndiff1.

Right now, the help text for the --pre-1.4-compatible flag is somewhat
redundant: "use format compatible with Subversion versions earlier
than 1.4". Here's some better help text: "disallow use of SVNDIFF1 in
on-disk storage, for backwards compatibility with Subversion 1.3.x and
earlier."

We don't actually need to add "--no-svndiff1" as an alias for
"--pre-1.4-compatible" -- I think the change in help text is
sufficient to clarify the purpose of the flag.

Cheers,

David

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Received on Sat Aug 26 19:01:26 2006

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