Re: Another VC terminology change?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>     The terms ``checkin'' and ``checkout'' are associated with file-based
>     and locking-based systems and a bit archaic; nowadays those operations
>     are usually called ``commit'' and ``update''.

> Since I've had to take a big hammer to VC's terminology anyway to clean up
> the inconsistencies Stefan pointed out, I'm thinking now might be a good
> time for me to go further and change these.

> The argument against, of course, is that users are accustomed to these
> terms.  They're embedded in VC because when I originally wrote it SCCS
> and RCS were the only games in town[1] and these are the terms they used.

> The argument for is that 'commit' and 'update' are a better match for the
> terms CVS introduced and every subsequent VCS we're interested in has
> pretty much retained.

Not about "checkout" which sometimes means "update" and sometimes "get".
But yes, "checkin" should be replaced by "commit".

This said, I don't know if we should change it only in the doc, or also in
the code, especially in the part of the code that interacts with the user
(i.e. commands) or the backends: I think it's important to make sure that
a single backend can work both with the new and the old VC.


        Stefan