Why you don't want to allow disabling "branches are global and permanent, did you want a bookmark"?

[v]

Adrian Buehlmann wrote
> 
> On 2012-08-09 10:59, v wrote:
>> 
>> Laurens Holst wrote
>>>
>>>> If that is unswallowable, a message that
>>>> doesn't imply the user is doing something wrong would be better.
>>>
>>> So where are your concrete suggestions? Or do you expect someone else to 
>>> do that for you?
>>>
>> 
>> How about: "The branch name will be permanently recorded on commit. For
>> alternatives, see hg help bookmarks."
> 
> If Mercurial nowadays really has to start getting *that* chatty, that's
> probably an acceptable compromise.
> 
> But I really wonder why we now even have to hint at other features
> (bookmarks) in status messages of unrelated commands (branch).
> 
> Can't we expect that people would start looking around for alternatives
> if they are told that the branch name will be permanent, likely noticing
> that that perhaps is *not* what they expect? Perhaps this would then be
> enough motivation for those poor git refugees to finally start reading
> some help texts? (like for example "help branch", which already has a
> prominent notice about bookmarks?)
> 

Perhaps that should be "The branch name will be permanently recorded on
commit. For alternatives, see the help topic." I would prefer something more
concise, but I couldn't think of anything with the right tone.


Adrian Buehlmann wrote
> 
> On 2012-08-09 10:59, v wrote:
>> If the repository already has named branches, perhaps this hint should be
>> omitted altogether.
> 
> Sounds too surprising to me, and a bit ridiculous (to reach for such
> complex logic).
> 
> Either we can manage to make a reasonable choice, or let things be as they
> are.
> 

The user only needs to be warned once. As keeping a configuration option has
been rejected, this seemed like a reasonable alternative.

If they ignored the first message, they'll probably ignore subsequent
messages as well, and people who know what they're doing don't have to be
bothered every time they create a branch!




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