Re: Auto-selection of merge source URL

On Dec 1, 2007 7:39 PM, Daniel Rall <dlrcollab.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
>
> > Here again, though:
> >
> >    $ svn merge -c -SOME_REV
> >
> > Oh!  Shoot!  Better undo that:
> >
> >    $ svn merge -c SOME_REV
> >
> > Uh...
>
> In this model, where forward and reverse merges have
different behavior,
> the second 'svn merge' to do a rollback is
inappropriate.  If you hadn't
> performed a commit of the previous merge, you'd use
'svn revert'.

A revert would revert everything - the merges we do many
times have
multiple parts to them...  But then that rarely is within
the same
URL/branch.

>  If you
> had performed a commit which, say, created NEW_REV,
you'd do:
>
>      $ svn merge -c -NEW_REV
>
> ...which would rollback the reverse merge and mergeinfo
changes of SOME_REV
> from the WC's branch.

Ahh, but again, that does the whole thing - if I really only
wanted to
undo the single r2344 that I undid by accident the time
before it does
not work orthogonally.

> Alternately, you could use:
>
>      $ svn merge -c SOME_REV SOME_REV_SOURCE_URL
>
> While I agree with Mike that the UI offers some
potential for confusion,
> this model would be at least deterministic, meaning the
users who don't
> read the documentation (read: everyone) would at least
be able to learn the
> sub-command flavor's behavior.  This is a reasonable
trade-off because it
> better matches the typical user usage model.

While I agree that it is deterministic, the UI is
non-orthogonal and
that tends to be confusing for users (and me) and very
annoying for
dynamic scripts (well, you never use the shortcut and you
never get
bit...)

And as someone who gets asked to help support Subversion
users I know
that if the behavior is non-orthogonal that I will, most
likely, never
even mention the shortcut.

PS - Plus, so many other commands assume the self-URL - svn
ls, svn
diff, etc.  It would make merge really stand out.

(I agree it would be nice to address the default merge
source URL but
how to best do this has yet to hit me between the eyes...)

-- 
Michael Sinz               Technology and Engineering
Director/Consultant
"Starting Startups"                         
mailto:Michael.Sinzsinz.org
My place on the web                      http://www.sinz.org/
Michael.Sinz

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