I will put the technical content up front. Anyone uninterested in how
rude members of the list are to total strangers can skip the rest.
>> For example...
>> I can't figure out how to check out some URL into a working
>> directory (as might be needed, for example, to add a branch of some
>> submodule from the repository into my working copy).
>
> That's the most basic operation. If you don't know how to do that I
> strongly suggest you read the TortoiseSVN docs first:
> http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/docs.html
>
Rereading my original point I realize I wasn't clear. What I meant was
that if I have a directory checked out that is a working copy, the
context menu when I right-click inside that directory doesn't seem to
have "check out" as an option. So I can't pull some other module
directly into a module I've already checked out in order to schedule a
submodule for addition. Since from the command line all the commands
are available all the time, it seemed like removing this from the
context menu when you're inside a working copy was a problem with the
tool.
I will look at the documentation to see if I can find clarification,
but hopefully it is more clear now what my question was, and that I'm
not a total yutz, in that I know enough to check things out with
TortoiseSVN. I admit that the fact I use the command line client for
99% of my work and administer several SVN repositories led me to skip
the documentation and approach TortoiseSVN with what may have been bad
assumptions.
>> Providing an existing directory name as the target for a URL
>> checkout seems to cause the contents of the URL-named directory to be
>> dumped into the existing directory (instead of telling the user that
>> the directory already exists or providing any warning to a new user
>> that the target is supposed to include the name of the new working
>> copy's directory).
>
> Again, that's something very well explained in the docs.
>
This was more a user interface comment than anything else, but I'll
make sure my users read the TortoiseSVN docs and not just the user
chapters of the SVN book. Really as soon as it happened _I_ understood
why it happened, because the command-line client would have done the
same thing. However the new user that encountered this didn't
understand it, so I was giving a point of user interface feedback. A
big part of good GUI design is managing affordances (sp?), and I was
just trying to pass back a data point. Users don't all read
documentation, especially for something like an Explorer plugin, they
just expect it to work like the rest of what it's plugging into.
As feedback for the mailing list, if you want users to adopt your tool
you shouldn't attack them, ever -- if my user had posted a question and
gotten the response I got, they would have gone back to PVCS and
decided that the level of public support wasn't worth the trouble.
Now then, as to the nature of responses I got from Mr. King over my
innocent emails...
On Jan 7, 2005, at 2:24 PM, SteveKing wrote:
> Hamilton Link wrote:
>> Who do I ask questions about TortiseSVN? It seems to have a different
>> model of the universe than the command line client.
> [snip the rest]
>
> Ok, you did it. I can't believe there are such lazy people living in
> this world!
>
> You've sent the exact same message to the Subversion mailing list. I
> answered you there. Obviously, reading answer mails is too much work
> for you. If not reading, then definitely trying to understand them.
> And then, to top even that, you just _forward_ the same message to
> this list here. You don't even bother to write a new message which
> would show us that you read the answer mails you got from the
> Subversion mailing list.
>
> Do you really expect us to answer you?
> If you want an answer to your question, get off your butt and
> - go back to the Subversion mailing list and read the answers to your
> question there first.
> - *DO* what you're told in those mails.
> - Read the docs. If you can't even do a checkout, then you just proove
> that you don't even care to read them!
> - I've already asked you on the Subversion mailing list what you mean
> with "read-only flag". You haven't answered that.
>
> Stefan
>
> --
> ___
> oo // \\ "De Chelonian Mobile"
> (_,\/ \_/ \ TortoiseSVN
> \ \_/_\_/> The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control
> /_/ \_\ http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org
>
OK, I looked at your email. Knowing that it was present, I did find it
and in fact you did not copy me on it, it was addressed only to the
users list and got buried in about 298 other emails in my "svn lists"
folder. I have now read it, understand it, and I've interleaved a few
comments below my main response:
You don't actually need to flame me for any of the grievous sins I
committed. If you're so surprised by the lazy people in the world I
should share that I'm often surprised by the rudeness of people in the
world -- even your first email, before I'd committed any serious
offense, was not very polite. Usually when I've seen questions posted
to SVN lists, naive or otherwise, people are polite even when they tell
the seeker to RTFM.
The dev and user mailing lists put hundreds of emails in my box every
day, and it's often difficult to pick out individual threads. I didn't
see any email directed at me until the attack above appeared in my
inbox, except about 4 people who emailed me directly telling me briefly
but courteously that a different mailing list was more appropriate to
post my email on, or referring me to the web site. I reposted my email
and am looking at the web site.
Once I knew you responded with a helpful email in addition to this
gratuitously rude one, I did look and found the more helpful one. Thank
you for informing me that I overlooked an email directed at but not
addressed to me.
Still I would suggest that you be more polite to random strangers in
the future, even when they make simple mistakes. If it's not worth your
valuable time to be courteous, then don't bother sending a response at
all and possibly other less irritable people will.
sincerely,
hamilton
> Hamilton Link wrote:
>> Who do I ask questions about TortiseSVN? It seems to have a different
>> model of the universe than the command line client.
>
> 1. It's called Tortoi_o_iseSVN, not TortiseSVN.
Thanks for correcting a typo. Tortoise isn't a word I use very often,
I'll type it more slowly in the future. By the way, in your email above
prove is misspelt as "proove" -- might want to fix that, normally I
wouldn't mention it since I often misspell lose as loose, but an eye
for an eye, motes vs. logs, glass houses, etc.
> 2. There's a separate mailing list for TortoiseSVN:
> dev@tortoisesvn.tigris.org
But apparently I'm not allowed to post to it without getting ripped a
new one.
> 3. Before you send mails there, read
> http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/list_etiquette.html
Given that you chewed me out for posting to it (in response to other
people's emails than yours) after overlooking this email, you're quite
the one to be talking about etiquette. Didn't your mother teach you it
wasn't polite to call people "lazy", to tell them "get off your butt"
and "do what you're told", or to assume the worst about people from
first impressions?
Your email labels a lot of things "obvious" and "proven" that either
aren't the case or were the case because your original email was
completely lost in the deluge. Whether or not you will do so, I suggest
you consider how presumptuous, arrogant, and offensive this makes you
seem before you accost some other person you've never met in a public
forum.
>
>> For example...
>> I can't figure out how to check out some URL into a working
>> directory (as might be needed, for example, to add a branch of some
>> submodule from the repository into my working copy).
>
> That's the most basic operation. If you don't know how to do that I
> strongly suggest you read the TortoiseSVN docs first:
> http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/docs.html
>
>> I can't figure out how to get stuff checked out without the
>> read-only flag set (which is hugely annoying).
>
> Häh? Read-only flag? What's a read-only flag? Do you mean the
> read-only file attribute? TortoiseSVN doesn't even touch that!
>
OK, I'll try to find out what is setting the read-only file attribute.
That is in fact what I meant, yes. And I'm not a regular Windows user,
so if I'm using "flag" when "attribute" would be more accurate or
idiomatic, sorry.
>> Providing an existing directory name as the target for a URL
>> checkout seems to cause the contents of the URL-named directory to be
>> dumped into the existing directory (instead of telling the user that
>> the directory already exists or providing any warning to a new user
>> that the target is supposed to include the name of the new working
>> copy's directory).
>
> Again, that's something very well explained in the docs.
>
>> There are various other irritants but these are the big ones for
>> starters. I just want to talk to someone about whether these things
>> are configurable, and whether the features list is still a moving
>> target trying to figure out how to best reflect the svn command line
>> client into an explorer plugin.
>
> TortoiseSVN doesn't try to 'best reflect the svn command line client'
> but to provide an easy user interface. If it would just map the
> command line client into a GUI, that wouldn't be good - GUI's work
> very different from command line clients.
>
> Stefan
>
> --
> ___
> oo // \\ "De Chelonian Mobile"
> (_,\/ \_/ \ TortoiseSVN
> \ \_/_\_/> The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control
> /_/ \_\ http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org
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Received on Sat Jan 8 09:22:42 2005