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[BIKESHED] Merge notification verb choices

From: C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato_at_collab.net>
Date: 2007-09-14 21:05:35 CEST

In IRC, Dan explained to me that when designing the merge notifications,
especially for single-revision merge ranges, we needed a way to distinguish
between "merge -c M" and "merge -c -M". We use "merging" to describe most
merges, but for the reverse merge case, we decided to go with "undoing", as in:

   Undoing r45

I take issue with this verb because to "undo" implies that something must
have first been done, and frankly our client code doesn't actually have
sufficient awareness to make that claim. I can run 'svn merge -c REV' on
any arbitrary source and revision and apply that to any arbitrary location,
and while it may conflict like crazy, the operation will still be attempted.
 Does this mean I "undid" that change? Not hardly.

Mark suggested "removing", but it has the same shortcomings. As does
"Un-merging", or any number of verbs which claim to be inverting the results
of some presumedly previously performed action.

I suggest that we conservatively call a reverse-merge what it is:

   Reverse-merging r45

-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato@collab.net>
CollabNet   <>   www.collab.net   <>   Distributed Development On Demand

Received on Fri Sep 14 21:02:00 2007

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