Re: base

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Reply-To: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
> System-Type: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
> Blat: Foop
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:44:23 +0900
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> > I think you simply don't like bzr, so you are inventing imaginary
> > problems that are present in it, but absent in other dVCSs.
> 
> I don't like bzr -- but it's not for no reason.  These problems are
> certainly not "imaginary."

In that case, we will have to disagree.  I don't find bzr fitting the
description of "being inconsistent, complicated, and confusing, with
no simple mental model for users to latch onto", any more than other
dVCSs out there.  I can understand how it could be confusing if you
come from another dVCS with similar commands that have subtly
different semantics, but that problem exists no matter what tools you
are switching from and to.  Other than that, the most popular commands
are neither inconsistent, nor complicated or confusing.  You will need
to work hard to convince me otherwise, because I became a happy user
(well, except for the speed...) just a couple of months after
installing bzr.

For that matter, I don't find the bzr docs worse than that of git or
others.  They are both essentially a collection of man pages with
little or no glue to bind them into a coherent manual that could be
read and understood by a relative novice.  You may say that git man
pages are well written, and I might agree, but since when well-written
man pages are accepted as good documentation?  That could pass in
1980s, but its IMO ridiculous to claim that this is "documentation" in
the year 2010.  (Yes, I know about user-manual.html, but it's
(a) generally unavailable as part of the installation, and (b) is
again a cookbook style hodgepodge of recipes without any explanations
to glue them together.  It doesn't even define its terms -- and no,
the Glossary doesn't count.)

Of course, the bzr docs are no better -- which is precisely my point:
there's nothing better or worse in usability in either dVCS.