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Re: Confusing situation regarding revisions and changes

From: C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato_at_collab.net>
Date: 2007-09-20 13:43:45 CEST

Mark Phippard wrote:
>> I find this utterly confusing and even though several people have
>> argued that users think of revisions as changes, I don't think it's a
>> reason for us to start conflating the two.
>
> Utterly confusing? Really? In all of the proposed places it is using
> this format it is in a situation where these revisions have already
> been applied. Arguably, this is closer to svn log, then it is to svn
> merge/diff where you are using the revisions to tell it to do
> something.

If only it was a binary situation ... but it isn't. We currently have the
following interpretations of -rN:M

   svn log -rN:M -- iterative output from N to M, inclusive
   svn blame -rN:M -- collapsed output with data from N to M, inclusive
   svn diff/merge -rN:M -- collapsed output with data from N+1 to M

Some of the disparity is due to the nature of the commands: the data used
for log output can't really be collapsed, because the nature of the command
is to show that raw data iteratively. Log is about showing the changes
themselves (the nodes), not the differences between them (the edges).
Blame, diff, and merge are more about showing the edges -- not the actually
snapshots, but the state changes between them.

Has any of this caused real user confusion? I don't know, but I doubt it.
I mean, diff's syntax causes lots of confusion, but not because of how -r is
treated -- in my experience its the fact that diff's path arguments are
iterative when most folks expect them to be comparative (like GNU diff's
are). If diff's use of -r doesn't confuse you, neither will merge's. And
it could be that most folks just don't use the revision-range form of blame.
 I dunno ... I don't have enough anecdotal evidence to speak with authority
here.

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

Received on Thu Sep 20 13:43:59 2007

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