Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: taglines vs explicit

[Miles Bader]

On Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 10:57:26AM -0700, Joshua Haberman wrote:
> > 2) It may be quite common for people to work with arch controlled trees
> > who do not _have_ tla, and therefore typing it won't be very helpful.
> 
> Without tla, it would not be possible to generate changesets, perform
> tree-lint, or execute any other operation that will use arch-tag's.

I'm not sure what your point is; what people like about taglines it that
external people can hack on a non-arch-controlled source tree, and send you
the changes (in whatever manner), and that it's much easier for you to apply
those changes to your arch-controlled sources if taglines were used (note
it's still not _perfect_ just easier).

> * ensuring that other, less arch-savvy users add tags correctly in new
> files, neither copying an arch-tag from another file nor explicitly
> tagging a new source file.  arch-tag's would _really_ become useless if
> some source files had taglines and others were explicitly tagged

Well, not `useless,' just `less useful.'

Certainly I would recommend (if you'll excuse a bit of advertisement) that
people use something like my `tla-update-ids' script to add tags; it will add
either taglines or explicit tags depending on the current tagging mode and
the name of the file -- it's not perfect, but it's a lot more convenient that
adding taglines manually, and it makes it easier to enforce tagging policy.

Perhaps `tla add' should have a `pre hook' that could be used to do
such policy checking in a more rigid manner.

[Like some others, I do think it would be nice if tagline tags and explicit
tags were `compatible,' or if there a cheap way to retag files (I've thought
a bit about the latter, perhaps someday...)]

> * ensuring that other, less arch-savvy users do not accidentally corrupt
> arch-tags (for example by reformatting a comment to put the comment end
> on the same line as the arch-tag.

Tree-lint is necessary whether you use explicit tags or taglines.  In the
(rare) case where someone _does_ screw something up, it almost certainly is
not hard to fix.

> * listening to some people complain that such tags are ugly metadata and
> do not belong in source code files.

I suspect those people will be annoying no matter what you do... :-)

Anyway, they'll forget the taglines are there after their first nap.
Really.

-Miles
-- 
Suburbia: where they tear out the trees and then name streets after them.