Re: "P" status from update

[Larry Jones]

Derek R. Price writes:
> 
> Only semi-gratuitous, and though I neglected to mention it the first
> time, I would only do this on feature.  I've been teaching CVS training
> classes for the last few years, and the difference between "U" and "P"
> usually appears to be one of the topics where it seems student's eyes
> begin glazing over.  I get the impression that the students that
> understand generally don't care and the students that haven't used diff
> & patch before sometimes need to be told second and subsequent times.  I
> usually end up explaining the difference between "U" and "P" again at
> least once per class while I am running the students through examples
> after a lecture.  I believe the comment from one student was, "we want
> to know how to use CVS, not how it works."  The existance of the "P"
> status code at all now seems somewhat gratuitous to me.

Yes, it probably would have saved a lot of confusion if "P" had never
existed.  But it has, and the questions about it have mostly died down
now.  I'm afraid that getting rid of it will just cause people who were
used to the old behavior (and people using old versions of the
documentation) to start asking why patch suddenly isn't working any
more.  For training classes, it should be sufficient to just say that
they mean the same thing -- the reason for two different codes is a
technical detail that they don't need to worry about.

-Larry Jones

At times like these, all Mom can think of is how long she was in
labor with me. -- Calvin