Re: Preventing mistakenly deleting branch tags

[Derek R. Price]

Don Bockenfeld/FVI wrote:

> I'm a little shaky on some of this so please forgive me if I misspeak ...
>
> Branch tags and revision tags were both built using the RCS tag facility.
> I submit that it is not useful for CVS users to be aware that both kinds of
> tags are implemented from the same lower-level construct (other than the
> necessity to avoid revision tag names that have a magical appearance).
> This is especially true now that CVS has unhooked itself from RCS.
>
> How painful (tedious changes and backwards-incompatible) would it be for
> the CVS command processor, and hence the user, to pretend that branch tags
> and revision tags were fundamentally different things?  I'm not suggesting
> changing the "back-end" implementation of the tags.

Quite painful, I think, if you include making sure they have separate 
namespaces (i.e.
allowing a tag and a branch with the same name).

I'm not sure this is completely desirable anyhow since branches and static tags 
are used so
similarly. Users who notice that mostly only need to learn one set of commands 
and remember
that occasionally branches will behave a bit differently than static tags.

Restricting tag -d & -F to require a -b to operate on branches should be a 
useful step in
the right direction, though.

Derek

--
Derek Price                      CVS Solutions Architect ( http://CVSHome.org )
mailto:dprice@collab.net         CollabNet ( http://collab.net )
--
OPHELIA
  O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
  The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
  Th'expectancy and rose of the fair state,
  The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
  Th'observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
  And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
  That sucked the honey of his music vows,
  Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
  Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh,
  That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
  Blasted with ecstasy.  O, woe is me
  T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

     - Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, Lines 151-162