Re: [Monotone-devel] Questions about Monotone

[Daniel Carrera]

Markus Wanner wrote:
> I consider this a standard feature of pretty much ever VCS, including
> even CVS: you simply tell it which files to commit, no?

Sorry, I was mentally thinking of also specific changes inside a file. 
I'm used to darcs, and I'm not used to CVS. So some times I might make 
weird assumptions. I had even forgotten that CVS lets you select files 
until you mentioned it.

Anyways, o


> Ah, so you are talking about changes within the same file.

Yes, thats right. Often the changes are in the same file. It's a 
smallish program. Most of the functionality is in two files: a core 
program and a library, and then I have a bunch of front-end type files 
(PHP templates). So making a change often involves changing something in 
the core file.

> Well, yeah, that's an area where monotone isn't that brilliant, yet.
>
> One way to do it would be to use a branch for Feature_A, commit your
> experimental changes there and then switch back to the main / stable
> branch for Issue_B. As long as the changes don't conflict, the merge
> algorithm does everything for you. Remember that branches are cheap.

Do I need to make a separate directory to make a branch? I'll read the 
documentation on branches and I'll probably have a question then.


> Another way is to split logically different modules into different
> files, which is advisable anyway, IMO.

Yes. This program is severely lacking in modularity. It was quite horrid 
when I first got it. The whole program was one single 1200-line if 
statement! There was only *one* function, and the effect of that 
function was to force all variables to be global! It was a "validate" 
function. If you wanted to validate an email, you would run 
validate('email') and then the function would look for a global variable 
called $email and validate that.


I've spent the last few years cleaning up the program. Moving code out 
of the if-statement-from-hell and putting the code into functions 
(*functions*!).

So anyways, I agree that modularity is where I want the program to be in 
the future. But truthfully it will be a long time before it gets there. 
You can also see why I am working on two things at once. "Feature_A" 
usually is refactoring the code to make it modular, clean and correct.


Anyways, I'll go read about branching with Monotone.

Cheers,
Daniel.