[Gnu-arch-users] Design proposal to kill pristine trees

[Pau Aliagas]

After careful thought and taking into consideration all the opinions here
in the list expressed, it's clear that more freedom is needed to:
1)  store revisions in different long-lasting libraries
2) keep the concept of pristine trees as a temporary cache


1) store revisions in different long-lasting libraries
   ---------------------------------------------------
Now we only have a default library path (.arch-params/=revision-library)
We should have the freedom to specify a library path per registered 
archive.

* implementation options:

  a) overload the .arch-params/=locations/archive_name
     * label lines and put there all the info
       -con: backwards incompatibility
       -con: no library functions to manipulate it
       +pro: intuitive and logical place to store this info

  b) create .arch-params/=revision-library-locations/archive_name
       -con: more files and dirs
       +pro: backwards compatible
       +pro: library functions to manipulate it
       +pro: maximum freedom
       todo: add options to register-archive to manipulate it

* my opinion:
  Let's do b)


2) keep the concept of pristine trees as a temporary cache
   -------------------------------------------------------
As shown in previous emails, keeping prisitines as they are now is too 
expensive, even more when we have in place the optimal solution: revlibs.
But there's a general feeling that they are more temporary and they should 
be placed closer to the working dirs, probably due to space restictions 
and other factors.

My proposal is transforming prstine trees into revlibs, but kept in places 
where you can easyly discard them carelessy. All the creations and updates 
to pristine trees that take place now would disappear and become creations 
and updates of revlibs, which would be faster and more space efficient.

* implementation options:

  To do it I'd follow the same scheme proposed formerly for revlibs.

  We would need a default location (.arch-params/=tmp-revision-library)  
  with its library-* commands (maybe we could parametrise the existing 
  ones).

  a) Idem than before
  
  b) create .arch-params/=tmp-revision-library-locations/archive_name
     And the rest exactly the same.


This way we'd fulfill all the desired features, give maximum freedom to 
arch users, keep it easy for newcomers and speed tla a considerable 
amount.

Thoughts?

Pau