Re: [Monotone-devel] 0.48 rants

[Ethan Blanton]

Derek Scherger spake unto us the following wisdom:
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Aaron W. Hsu <address@hidden> wrote:
> > With all the negative responses regarding the new changelog editor, I
> > just thought I would weigh in with something a little more positive. I
> > actually do like the changes, on a whole, and think that we shouldn't
> > just revert to the old behavior.
> 
> Thanks! It has been mildly depressing to see the  predominantly negative
> response.

Well, I, for one, would like to clarify that I didn't intend my
comments to be wholly negative; I think maybe you grokked that from
the first time, but let me say it anyway.  ;-)  I *like* the editable
headers, and I think they're a net benefit.  I don't like the prose
preceding the commit, for two reasons:

    1) The new format is just complicated enough that you *have to
       read it*, and I'm so used to ignoring VCS boilerplate (it's
       pretty common for VCSes to dump some sort of instructions that
       can be safely ignored unless, for example, you want to abort a
       commit) that I did so.

    2) The first blank line in the commit is within the boilerplate,
       but adding the commit message there is invalid.  There was a
       bug which additionally caused any text added there to be lost
       forever, but I think maybe tommyd fixed that(?).

I would have no objections whatsoever to either:

    a) An RFC-822ish header block followed by one blank line, followed
       by the commit message, followed by a magic separator and the
       boilerplate text which I can then safely ignore.  ;-)

    b) The commit message leading things off, followed by a magic
       separator and the metadata, followed by boilerplate I can
       safely ignore.

I agree with the various comments running around that +14 (or
whatever) is easy enough.  I think it's important to not *surprise
people*, though, and the current format is surprising.  I haven't
checked the hook list, but if there's not a "get editor" or "get
commit editor options" hook, after these changes there probably should
be; that allows one to set the monotone commit editor to include
additional arguments to, say, one's mail editor.  (Which, in my case,
also has a +n to skip RFC822-style headers, and is different from
$EDITOR.)

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
                -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764

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