On 25 Apr 2011, at 11:13, Andrew Coppin wrote:
> On 24/04/2011 06:33 PM, Jason Dagit wrote:
>>
>> This is because of a deliberate choice that was made by David Roundy.
>> In darcs, you never have multiple branches within a single darcs
>> repository directory tree.
>
> Yes, this seems clear. I'm just wondering whether or not it's the best design
> choice.
It seems to me to be a considerable insight. Branches and repositories are the
same thing. There is no need for two separate concepts. The main reason other
VCSes have two concepts is because one of them is often more efficiently
implemented (internally) than the other. But that's silly - how much better to
abstract over the mental clutter, and let the implementation decide how its
internals look!
So in darcs, two repositories on the same machine share the same files (like a
branch), but if they are on different machines, they have separate copies of
the files. The difference is a detail that you really don't need to know or
care about.
> It does mean that you duplicate information. You have [nearly] the same set
> of patches stored twice,
No, if on the same machine, the patches only appear once, it is just the index
that duplicates some information (I think). In fact just as if it were a
branch in another VCS.
Regards,
Malcolm
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