Re: setprop vs. propset

Stefan Sperling wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 10:05:26AM +0200, Jens Seidel wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 07:05:18PM -0500, Peter Samuelson wrote:
>>> [Tyler Winter Mace]
>>>> I have trouble using the "propset" and "propget" (etc) commands. Almost
>>>> every time, I type "setprop" or "getprop." That's because I want to "set"
>>>> a "property" and that's how I expect the command to be when I type it on
>>>> the command line.
>>> Probably the simplest thing is just to get used to the abbreviations
>>> pl, pg, ps, pe, pd. If you think of a group of 5 two-letter commands
>>> with a common one-letter prefix, it should be easy to remember it isn't
>>> a common one-letter suffix. Or maybe it's just me. As Jay Ashworth
>>> says, so many things are just me.
>> Oh, yes, it's just you :-)
>
> Note that there is a patch attached to the issue #3268 already:
> http://subversion.tigris.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/926/svn-prop-aliases.diff
>
> It's trivial to add these aliases. I am perfectly fine with
> adding them, and I'd like to commit the patch.
>
> The patch adds all of the following aliases:
>
> delprop, delp, dp,
> editprop, editp, ep,
> getprop, getp, gp,
> listprop, listp, lp,
> setprop, setp, sp
>
> The whole point of this thread should be that anyone who does not
> want these aliases to be added for whatever reason please speak up now.
>
> But please give a good reason. I personally can't come up with of any
> other counter argument than "please let's not add more and more aliases
> because we will end up with way too many of them, cluttering the UI."
>
> And while I agree that adding too many aliases for commands can
> lead to a confusing UI in the long term, I don't think that it
> will cause confusion in this particular case.

Let's face the facts, here: most of our commands have aliases for one of
two reasons:

   * To match the name/alias of the similar CVS subcommand
   * To provide a shorter thing to type for especially long subcommands

This change matches neither criteria. CVS has no property setting
functionality, and our property commands already have short aliases. That
one guy has a problem remembering the subcommand name is just too bad for
that one guy -- clearly this problem hasn't plagued others over the past six
years (or at least enough for them to complain about it). It's not as if
'svn help' is hard to type; it's not as if the world ends if you pick a
bogus subcommand name.

So, while sanity compels me to tell you to drop this patch and discussion,
I'm willing to give some ground here: I'm fine with you adding the
longest-form aliases here (delprop, editprop, etc.), but not the medium- or
small-sized ones.

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